On Thursday, Rick Barnes completed his roster, adding former VCU transfer big Christian Fermin to fill his final roster spot. While Tennessee’s eight-player transfer class ranks second in the country to Louisville, you can argue that no team, at least among the programs that retained the same head coach from last year, remade itself more drastically.
Through Tennessee’s three-straight trips to the Elite Eight, Barnes’s rosters have been defined by physical defense and elite rebounding. That edge on the boards, especially the offensive glass, was one of the biggest reasons that the Vols went from a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament to the Midwest Region Final this March and April.
Yet, each time, the Vols proved to be a shot-creator or too short, relying too heavily on one or two talented scorers to bail them out of static and clunky offensive possessions, especially late in games.
Rather than run it back with a similar build, Barnes said goodbye to Amari Evans, Jaylen Carey, Bishop Boswell, J.P. Estrella, Clarence Massamba, and Cade Phillips as they entered the Transfer Portal. He replaced them with a major portal haul loaded with high-volume shot-takers and difficult shot-makers in Juke Harris, Jalen Haralson, Dai Dai Ames, and Terrence Hill Jr.
Still, Barnes couldn’t entirely abandon his program’s physical identity, especially not in a conference currently dominated by Todd Golden’s supersized Florida Gators, who are returning their three bigs, Thomas Haugh, Rueben Chineyelu, and Alex Condon. The Fermin addition isn’t solely for that matchup, but it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t seep into Barnes’s mind.
Christian Fermin gives Tennessee the front court depth it desperately needed
College basketball has largely followed the trend of massive front courts and rim dominance that Golden’s Gators have been on the bleeding edge of. Michigan just won its title on the back of a three-big lineup, and now everybody is chasing easy buckets in the paint, a rebounding edge, and multiple layers of rim protection.
Barnes has understood those advantages for years, but this offseason, as bigs became as expensive as ever, Barnes zagged. That decision provided great value in the portal and a roster with a championship ceiling. It also has the potential to provide a matchup advantage, spacing out cumbersome front courts and pressing the advantage on the offensive end. That is, assuming four high usage rate players learn to co-exist and play off the ball.
However, prior to the Fermin addition, it seemed as though Barnes’s unconventional build could leave him vulnerable to Florida’s size. Fermin doesn’t assuage all of those concerns. The 6-foot-10 senior played just four games last season for the Rams, and the 2023-24 season was the only time he played more than 20 minutes a game in the A10.
He’s not going to log huge minutes for Barnes, and at times, he may find himself out of the rotation altogether. However, he’s another big body to join Loyola Chicago transfer Miles Rubin, Kennesaw State transfer Braedan Lue, and returning sophomore DeWayne Brown II in the front court, and another option for Barnes to throw at the Gators’ trio of All-SEC caliber bigs.
That’s incredibly valuable, especially because of his rim protection. Fermin posted a 7.7 percent block rate in 2024-25 when he averaged 1.4 blocks per game for the Rams, and that jumped to 11.6 percent in his four games last season. With Fermin, Rubin, and Lue, rim protection was clearly a priority for Tennessee, which consciously sacrificed some of its typically stout perimeter defense with its offensive-minded additions.
Fermin isn’t the type of addition that drastically changes the outlook for Tennessee’s 2026-27 season, but it’s the type of move a championship contender needs to make on the margins, especially when one of the clear title favorites is looming in the same conference.
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