Derrick Walker
Height: 6-foot-8Position: ForwardHometown: Kansas City, Mo. (Raytown High School and Sunrise Christian Academy)Tennessee’s 2017-18 newcomersYvez Pons, freshman guard/forward (enrolling in August)Derrick Walker, freshman forward (enrolled at beginning of June)Zach Kent, freshman center (enrolled beginning of June)Jalen Johnson, guard (redshirted last year)Chris Darrington, guard (enrolled beginning of June; junior college transfer from Vincennes University)James Daniel III, guard (enrolled beginning of June; graduate transfer from Howard University)
Editor’s note: This is the fourth story in a series about the newcomers on Tennessee’s men’s basketball team.
KNOXVILLE – Derrick Walker is a true freshman for Tennessee, but he’s not a true, true freshman.
Unlike most of the players beginning their college basketball careers this summer, Walker has lived away from home. He spent a prep year at Sunrise Christian Academy in a suburb of Wichita, Kan., about three hours from his home near Kansas City, Mo.
So when the 6-foot-8 power forward with a tall head of hair arrived in Knoxville earlier this month, there was no homesickness.