Basketball Vols still looking for players for 2018-19

University of Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes signs autographs for Vols fans during the Big Orange Caravan Thursday, May 10, 2018 at the Tennessee Pavilion in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Big Orange Caravan made its annual Chattanooga stop, and athletic director Phillip Fulmer, head football coach Jeremy Pruitt, basketball coach Rick Barnes, women's basketball coach Holly Warlick and others were in attendance to speak and sign autographs. University of Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes signs autographs for Vols fans during the Big Orange Caravan Thursday, May 10, 2018 at the Tennessee Pavilion in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Big Orange Caravan made its annual Chattanooga stop, and athletic director Phillip Fulmer, head football coach Jeremy Pruitt, basketball coach Rick Barnes, women's basketball coach Holly Warlick and others were in attendance to speak and sign autographs.

By David Cobb May 12, 2018 2 min read

KNOXVILLE – Rick Barnes still plans to give out both of the Tennessee men’s basketball team’s open scholarships for the 2018-19 season, the coach said this past week in Chattanooga.

“We think right now we will,” Barnes said before Thursday night’s Big Orange Caravan event at the First Tennessee Pavilion. “We do. We think we will before it’s all said and done.”

The Volunteers lose just two of their 13 scholarship players from this past season’s team, which advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Already, graduate transfer guard Khwan Fore has committed to play his last season for Tennessee, though he has yet to sign a national letter of intent. If he does sign, that should leave the Vols with one more available scholarship. Men’s teams are permitted 13 scholarships per season.

Nearly all the nation’s top high school prospects from the class of 2018 have signed with other schools, but Tennessee could be eyeing a late-blooming prospect or be considering another graduate transfer or transfer.