Tennessee basketball has a new look as it prepares to open up its 10th season under head coach Rick Barnes. Gone are four starters from last season’s SEC Regular-Season Championship and Elite Eight team including program stalwarts Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James.
The duo leave a hole in Tennessee program particularly from a leadership and defensive standpoint. But no departure will be more noticeable to the eyes than Dalton Knecht’s to the NBA after one spectacular year in Knoxville.
Knecht was a First Team All-American and a scoring sensation, lifting Tennessee to its second best offensive output of the Rick Barnes era. After finishing 29th in KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency last season, they’re 35th in the preseason efficiency rankings. What gives Tennessee confidence that they won’t regress offensively without Knecht?
“Shooting. We shoot the ball exceptionally well,” Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark told RTI. “We got a lot of guys that can create some things. We do a good job of moving the ball.”
“I think our whole team, collectively, has an IQ that’s really really good like we did last year,” Tennessee assistant coach Bryan Lentz told RTI. “We might be a better shooting team then we were last year.”
That was Tennessee’s plan in the transfer portal this offseason, adding a trio of players that made 50-plus triple and shot 36% or better from three-point range.
Tennessee’s roster, with both returning players and transfers, combined to shoot 37.3% from three-point range. That’s the same mark that Alabama shot last season and is nearly three percentage points better than the Vols shot a season ago. Even if you average the three-point shooting percentages of each player, which magnifies returning players that took fewer triples than the transfers, the 35.5% three-point rate is a clear improvement from last season.
With an elite point guard in Zakai Zeigler running the show as well as incoming transfer stretch-fours Igor Milicic and Darlinstone Dubar on the roster, Tennessee should be able to push the pace and space the floor becoming a dangerous transition team.
“I think that our early offense is going to be lethal because we have so many guys that can stretch you out and shoot it where it’s going to open up driving lanes,” Clark said.
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After boasting a top 150 tempo offense just once in Barnes’ first eight seasons as head coach, Tennessee shot the ball at the 24th fastest rate in the country last season. Knecht was a big part of that but even with him gone, the Vols should see little dip in that area.
Tennessee should have a strong shooting team. The questions facing Tennessee is what its two-point offense is going to look at. Dalton Knecht could create his own shot and put pressure on the rim while Jonas Aidoo was also a threat at the basket for most of the season.
The Vols ranked fourth in the SEC in two-point shooting percentage last season. Recreating that is a major key for Tennessee’s offense to sustain the success it had.
“I think the goal is to be as good as a two-point percentage team as we were last year,” Clark said. “That’s the achilles heel because I’m a firm believer that your three-point percentage can also be dictated by your two-point percentage. If you’re a team that you rely on the three ball so much that you kind of neglect the two-point game, it will skew your numbers at the three-point line.”
Zeigler can put pressure on the rim and along with Ohio State transfer Felix Okpara, the Vols should have a fantastic duo in the pick-and-roll. That duo along with the back to the basket talent of sophomore JP Estrella is part of what gives Barnes confidence in the Vols’ offense.
“We’re really happy with where we’re moving with our inside game and guys that we can move forward and throw it to,” Barnes said. “In the past people pretty much (said) that we’re gonna let you play two-on-two those Zakai and a post guy and I think we made really good strides there because of how hard our post guys (are playing) and we know what Zakai is going to do.”
Which perimeter players besides Zeigler can put pressure on the rim is perhaps my biggest question mark about Tennessee’s offense entering the season and could be the difference in a top five and top 15 team.
We get our first true look at Tennessee’s offense this Sunday when the Vols face off against Indiana in an exhibition game in Knoxville. Tipoff is at 3 p.m. ET at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. SEC Network+ is streaming the game.
