Tennessee’s 2025-26 basketball season contained a November triumph over No. 3 Houston, a March run to the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight and a slew of ups and downs in between.
Given that the Volunteers had 11 new faces compared to five returning faces, it made for quite the accomplishment.
“We knew we were losing a lot of pieces after last year, and we knew it was going to be a completely new team,” Tennessee senior forward and former Hamilton Heights standout Felix Okpara said in a press conference following Sunday’s 95-62 loss to Michigan in Chicago’s United Center. “Guys like me and Grant (Hurst) and Cade (Phillips) and J.P. (Estrella) who were here last year had to help the new guys and the younger guys and show them the ropes. It was definitely hard having a completely new team, but we did it to the best of our abilities.
“We had a great group of guys who came in and bought into the program and the culture. It’s been exciting to be with these guys and to play with them.”
The Vols posted a 25-12 record, which didn’t match the 27-9 team of 2023-24 or the 30-8 team of 2024-25, but they equaled those squads when it came to winning three NCAA tournament games to be among the last eight teams standing. In fact, it was the first Tennessee team ever to beat two better-seeded opponents in NCAA play, with the Midwest Regional’s sixth-seeded Vols dismissing third-seeded Virginia in the Round of 32 and second-seeded Iowa State in the Sweet 16 before succumbing to the top-seeded Wolverines.
Tennessee also lost to regional top seeds Purdue in 2024 and Houston last season, with each of those teams advancing to the national championship contest. The Vols two years ago used 37 points from Dalton Knecht to hang with the Boilermakers before falling 72-66, but their two Elite Eight appearances since were essentially over at halftime.
“We’re going to have to shoot the ball better, and there’s no doubt about that,” coach Rick Barnes said after his 11th season with Tennessee drew to a close. “We were so inconsistent doing that, and we’ve still got to be better finishing around the rim. If you’ve watched us all year, we missed too many of those shots.
“Our defense got us here. It really did. We’ve had games when we’ve struggled to score, and we just played an outstanding team that was scoring. We will all have to get better, and we will all have to keep working at it.”
This season’s Vols were constructed to produce inside, and they set program records with 1,571 rebounds and 588 offensive rebounds. They also had a third incredibly successful portal acquisition, with senior point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie leading the Vols in scoring after Knecht did in 2023-24 and Chaz Lanier last season.
Gillespie averaged 18.4 points per game — Knecht averaged 21.7 and Lanier 18.0 — and he set Tennessee’s single-season steals standard at 79.
“I’m blessed to have the career I did, and I enjoyed every year,” said Gillespie, who spent his first two seasons at Belmont and played at Maryland as a junior. “I’m forever grateful to Coach Barnes for bringing me back home and allowing me to be the point guard of a great team and for giving me this opportunity. I’ll be forever grateful for that.”
Barnes announced after Sunday’s setback that he has committed to coaching the Vols next season as a 72-year-old, so let another roster construction begin.
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Returning J.P. Estrella, Cade Phillips and DeWayne Brown II in the interior would be a solid start, with each having signed with Tennessee out of high school, and the same could be said for guards Bishop Boswell and Amari Evans. Jaylen Carey, who played at James Madison as a freshman and at Vanderbilt as a sophomore before transferring to Knoxville, will be one to watch in upcoming days regarding his status for 2026-27.
That alone is a roster that could get the Vols back to the NCAA tournament, but it will take more portal success in order for them to make a similar run or accomplish something even more special.
“We certainly know what it takes to get here,” Barnes said. “Now, we’ve got to figure out getting to the next level.”
Gainey to N.C. State
Tennessee’s roster rebuild will have to take place without associate head coach Justin Gainey, who is leaving to take over at North Carolina State.
Gainey, who played point guard for the Wolfpack from 1996-2000 and served in an administrative role at his alma mater under Sidney Lowe from 2006-09, is becoming a head coach for the first time. He left Marquette to become a Vols assistant under Barnes in 2021-22 and was elevated after that season to associate head coach.
Odds and ends
Gillespie’s 87 points in this NCAA tournament are the second-most by a Vols player in a single event, trailing Knecht’s 104 in 2024. … Tennessee fell to 0-8 against regional top seeds in the NCAA tourney, with Sunday representing its largest margin of defeat. … Gillespie had at least one steal in each of his last 17 games, the second-longest streak in program history behind former Cleveland High standout Vincent Yarbrough’s 19 straight contests in 2001. … Tennessee joined Kentucky and Florida as the only Southeastern Conference programs ever to reach three straight Elite Eights.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.