Despite a rebuilding year, there were lots of standout individual performances for Tennessee basketball’s 2019-20 season. These are the Volunteers’ 10 best.
They only went 17-14, but when you consider the fact that Tennessee basketball lost four starters and then its fifth starter from last year midway through this season due to shoulder surgery, it’s safe to say Rick Barnes didn’t do so bad a job with the Vols this year. With all that talent gone, lots of new standout talent stepped up.
In the process, there were individual performances that will be remembered in school history for just how valuable they were. They came from players many people expected to take on a larger role this year but who still exceeded expectations in these games.
Barnes proved he turned Tennessee basketball into a program that could replace quality talent with other guys who could step up and perform. Even in a transition year, players who showed that should be touted for their top performances.
As a result, we’re going to rank the best single-game performances by individual Vols during this past season. With so many guys gone, Barnes was able to find other rotational guys, and different players in different nights helped UT.
Our criteria for these rankings include the production of the player in a game, the quality of the opponent, whether or not the game was on the road and whether or not the Vols won or lost the game. Some performances did come in losses, though, as they were impossible to ignore.
Also, players who developed over the course of the season often had amazing games down the stretch. Those games were evidence of Rocky Top’s potential to make a run in the SEC Tournament and get on the NCAA Tournament bubble before the coronavirus outbreak shut everything down.
So which games are we talking about? How many players made this list because of an amazing night, or multiple amazing nights? Let’s break that down here. These are the 10 best individual single-game performances by Vols during the 2019-2020 Tennessee basketball season.