The University of Tennessee’s men’s basketball team held its first practice Tuesday with a roster containing four additions through the transfer portal.
Could one of them be the next Dalton Knecht? Rick Barnes wants to hold off on that.
“We had no idea this time last year that Dalton was going to do what he did,” Barnes said in a news conference. “We’re not into where we’re comparing Dalton and saying, ‘We expect you to come in here and do what Dalton did,’ because we didn’t know what he was going to do. He evolved into that.
“The one thing we will always do is not put anybody in a box when they first get here. We want to make sure that they see that we want them to grow in every area, and the only way we can do that is to throw a lot at them.”
The Volunteers are coming off a memorable 27-9 season that contained a Southeastern Conference championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight, where they were knocked out by eventual runner-up Purdue. Knecht was responsible for a lot of those memories, as the 6-foot-6, 213-pound transfer from Northern Colorado averaged 21.7 points a game in earning SEC player of the year honors, and he became the first Tennessee player ever to score 30 or more points in five consecutive games.
Knecht parlayed his dazzling year in Knoxville into the 17th overall selection in the NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Tennessee’s latest transfer contingent includes 6-11, 235-pound junior forward Felix Okpara from Ohio State, 6-10, 225-pound fifth-year senior guard Igor Milicic Jr. from Charlotte, 6-8, 211-pound fifth-year senior guard Darlinstone Dubar from Hofstra, and 6-4, 199-pound fifth-year senior guard Chaz Lanier from North Florida.
Okpara played three seasons at Hamilton Heights before transferring to Link Academy in Missouri for his senior year of high school. His family is still in Chattanooga.
“I’m just going to play whatever role the coaches want me to play, whether that’s rebounding or blocking shots or whatever,” Okpara said. “I’m a defensive kind of player, but whatever comes, comes.”
Milicic is from Croatia but also has Polish citizenship, and he played for Poland this past summer in its failed attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris. Barnes expects Milicic to play all five positions at some point this season.
The Vols, who have six seniors on their roster headed by the familiar likes of Jordan Gainey, Jahmai Mashack and Zakai Zeigler, will host Indiana in an exhibition on Oct. 27. Their season opener will be Nov. 4 against Gardner-Webb inside the Food City Center.
“They want to be good, and they work hard,” Barnes said of his 10th Tennessee team, “but it’s been tough because of the lack of numbers. We’ve got a pretty good scout team, but when you only have 10 active scholarship players to go at each other the way we try to go at each other — they’ve had the right attitude.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.