Tennessee basketball: Vols top 10 greatest players in the 2010s decade

Joining Josh Richardson as one of the greatest development stories this decade for Tennessee basketball, Admiral Schofield initially committed to Donnie Tyndall’s first recruiting class as an undersized power forward at 6’6″. After all the NCAA infractions that resulted in his firing happened, Schofield still stuck it out when Rick Barnes came aboard.

Barnes got Schofield to 6’6″ 241 pounds, and then he went to work developing into a stretch-four guy who could play the three. His first year, he played behind Armani Moore. But by 2016-2017, Schofield had emerged as a force.

As a bigger wing player, Schofield became a rare threat who could use his width and athleticism to dominate inside while stretching the floor with his outside shot. In four years, he scored 1,570 total points and had 704 total rebounds, upping his average from seven and a half points and four rebounds as a freshman to 16.5 points and six rebounds by his senior season.

His final year, he also shot an astonishing 41.8 percent from three. Schofield was the go-to guy for Rocky Top whenever anything broke down with the offense, and he was the emotional leader, earning himself All-SEC honors and honorable mention All-American honors.

Oh, Schofield was also an elite and versatile defender with his size. He was a four-year player who helped orchestrate Barnes’s greatest successes so far with UT, like Lamonte Turner and Jordan Bowden, and it all happened this decade, which is why he is easily the second-best player of the 2010s.