Tennessee basketball improved to 12-0 on Monday night with an 82-64 win over MTSU in Knoxville. The Vols trailed in the second half but ran away with the game late. In its undefeated start to the season, Tennessee has played just one game decided by single digits.
But that doesn’t mean the season hasn’t been without drama or adversity. The Vols entered the season with just 11 players on scholarship. JP Estrella has season-ending foot injury last month while both Darlinstone Dubar and Bishop Boswell have battled injuries.
But the most surprising and peculiar news came on Monday afternoon when Cam Carr left the Vols’ program with intentions to transfer once the season is over. That gives Tennessee nine healthy scholarship players at best the rest of the season.
With Boswell missing Tennessee’s game against MTSU with a shoulder injury, the Vols had only eight scholarship players available.
“We would have had 10 guys here, and we expected that we could use all 10 guys,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “Bishop is somebody that … he’s made great strides, and I hate it for them, but he’ll come back stronger. His mental toughness and just his competitive spirit is something that, again, it’s going to serve him well.”
With top-ranked Tennessee so low on scholarship players, could the Vols look to add to their roster before the start of the spring semester?
“I don’t know,” Barnes said. “We haven’t thought a lot about it. I’m sure we will over the next couple of days, talk about some things.”
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The Vols could look to add a foreign player as their spring semester doesn’t begin until late January. But that still seems rather unlikely. The more logical solution would be for one of Tennessee’s two signees in its 2025 recruiting class to enroll early.
Four-star center DeWayne Brown was ironically at Tennessee’s game against MTSU on Monday but the more logical addition would be four-star wing Amari Evans.
Evans is a 6-foot-5, 200-pound wing who plays his prep basketball at the Overtime Academy. A defensive first player that is extremely well built for a high school senior, Evans is the type of high school player that could be competent in an emergency role.
That is the important thing to keep in mind. Tennessee is fine with the nine scholarship players they have right now. The Vols’ top seven guys are going to play the bulk of minutes while Dubar and Boswell will get a handful of minutes each time out with potentially bigger roles due to foul trouble.
“We have pretty much played eight or nine guys all year,” Barnes said. “Talking to some of the old legendary guys, they always told me, ‘you want to play six. Maybe seven. Eight only if you have to.’ To build that rotation. One of the greatest at it was Bobby Cremins (Georgia Tech). He’d do it every year. Lou Carnesecca (St. John’s), guys did it.”
If Tennessee avoids injuries from here on out, they’ll be fine with just nine scholarship players. But the Vols are a key injury or two away from being in a bind with the numbers. However, finding someone at this stage that can come in on short notice and help the team is a tough task.
The Vols have seven days off before they return to the court on New Years Eve to face Norfolk State in their final non conference game. Life gets much more challenging for Tennessee when they open up SEC play on Jan. 4 against Arkansas.
