Tennessee basketball: Vols can’t catch break with health of combo guards

With Lamonte Turner and now Josiah-Jordan James struggling with health, Tennessee basketball has had some bad luck. The Volunteers can’t catch a break.

This was supposed to be a strength of Tennessee basketball. At the beginning of the year, Lamonte Turner was the Vols’ best returning player and was expected to lead the team as a fifth-year senior combo guard. Meanwhile, Josiah-Jordan James was a five-star 6’6″ combo guard who figured to make an immediate impact.

Combine those two with Jordan Bowden, a pure scorer, and even in a rebuilding season, Rick Barnes had clearly put together an amazing backcourt. Well, with the season entering the homestretch, the exact opposite has occurred.

Turner had shoulder surgery last year and battled an injury there throughout the entire first two months of the season. He finally decided he couldn’t deal with it anymore and decided to have season-ending shoulder surgery in December, ending his career on Rocky Top.

Now, though, James is starting to struggle. He had a hip injury in the preseason, and Barnes said Thursday that he tweaked it against the Kansas Jayhawks. That’s been evident, as James has struggled severely on offense the past two games.

All of a sudden, a team that was supposed to be completely built around combo guards has to offset the issue there. Now, to be fair, Tennessee basketball got a break on the other end with Uros Plavsic being granted an eligibility waiver. But the fact of the matter is the team was supposed to be built around James, Turner and Bowden.

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Well, Turner is gone, and James is now banged up. It’s been a rough break for those guys and the Vols in general. Sure, Santiago Vescovi has developed nicely, and he is clearly showing a lot of potential at the point guard spot.

But this year, a veteran Turner and a healthy James would have been the way to go. Now, Barnes has to adjust on the fly. Given these injuries and the fact that the brutal part of the Vols schedule is about to begin, getting this team to the NCAA Tournament would be the greatest coaching job in Barnes’ career. There really wouldn’t be a close second.

There’s tons of excitement over what the future holds for Tennessee basketball with elite talent coming in for 2020-2021 and an assumption that lots of the key guys on this team will be back. In that sense, the Vols are now playing with a bit of house money, and there’s now even less pressure due to the injuries we talked about.

Perhaps James will get healthy again soon, and if that happens while Vescovi and Plavsic both develop, there’s a great chance that this team still does some special things. But there’s no denying it’s a major uphill climb, and it’s one Barnes and co. didn’t expect to have when this season tipped off back in November.

The 2019-2020 Vols were supposed to be one built on dominant guard play. They still could be, and don’t forget that Bowden is still an elite scorer when he’s red-hot. But Tennessee basketball has had to change course multiple times this year, and injuries to key players have been the cause.