Unlike many coaches his age, Rick Barnes hasn’t been shy about dipping into the Transfer Portal to help his team. In 2023, it netted him Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey, in 2024, it brought Chaz Lanier and Felix Okpara, and last offseason, Ja’Kobe Gillespie. But this offseason feels different with six outgoing transfers and a significant roster overhaul suddenly underway.
In the past, Barnes’s portal pickups have been to supplement the core of his roster. This offseason, it appears that he’s constructing that core on the fly. Gillespie and Okpara are out of eligibility, Nate Ament is likely heading to the NBA, and Bishop Boswell, J.P. Estrella, Jaylen Carey, Amari Evans, Clarence Massamba, and Cade Phillips have all entered the portal.
If Ament does, in fact, declare for the draft, that leaves DeWayne Brown II as the only returning player from the regular rotation. Ethan Burg played about 10 minutes across 31 games, but was far from a fixture for the Vols.
So, after three straight Elite Eight appearances, Tennessee looks to be starting from scratch with its incoming transfer class, and that puts major pressure on Barnes to pull off a one-year overhaul.
Tennessee is still waiting on its major portal splash with three additions in place
As he always does in the portal, Barnes has made good supplemental moves, adding Tyler Lundblade from Belmont, Dai Dai Ames from Cal, and Miles Rubin from Loyola Chicago.
Lundblade is a knockdown three-point shooter at 6-foot-5. Last season, he shot over 40 percent on 8.8 three-point attempts per game, one of the best marks in the country at that volume. Ames is a volume scorer with major college experience. At Cal, he averaged nearly 17 points per game. He may become Tennessee’s offensive focal point, but he lacks the playmaking ability to be a true point guard. At 6-foot-10, Rubin was one of the most prolific rim protectors in the Atlantic 10, averaging 2.3 blocks.
All three are major pickups, and along with Barnes’s three-player high school class, you can squint and see the pieces of a potential SEC contender slowly coming together. Still, it feels like a group of role players perfectly situated to play around a star. While he’s in the mix to land Wake Forest transfer Juke Harris, Barnes has yet to find that gravitational center of his roster, and if he loses out to Michigan or UNC, which are certainly formidable foes, there may not be another player like that on the market.
Barnes hasn’t made the Final Four since 2003. Tennessee has never been there. The last two years, it felt like a program on the cusp of a breakthrough, just a few pieces away. This year, there is major reconstructive surgery going on in Knoxville, and if Barnes gets it wrong, the 71-year-old may be running out of chances. Or at the very least, he’ll face the same problem again next offseason.
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