2026 Vols Transfer Portal Thread

Acting like Juke's the the next Michael Jordan. Guy's a transfer sophomore with decent but not elite stats. Go outside and play. The ACC went 2-14 against the SEC in 2024, and the other teams on its schedule aren't exactly SEC-caliber. Sure we want him, but yall are gonna have a heart attack worrying over this kid.
Says the guy with 3 posts.
 
And lots of teams have gone to the Final Four without that kind of player (Houston, Bama, Auburn, the Villanova champions).

I’m not saying Estrella is a bad player (he’s not.) I’m not saying Michigan doesn’t have a great scheme (they do.) I’m not saying that for the right team (including lots of smart teams) Estrella isn’t worth lots of money (he is.)

I’m saying that you’re not gonna remake your scheme for one player. You’re going to go with what you believe in (and one that lots of teams have won championships with) and you’re going to assign value accordingly to the spots you have to fill.
Estrella? I wasn't even talking about Estrella. I don't understand why everyone is obsessing over Estrella. I was talking about Thiam, Bonke, etc. Top level 5s. I think this is obvious. The last 4 NCAA champs have all had formidable front courts and all of the final four this year had formidable front courts to complete a balanced attack. Surely you don't deny this, do you?
 
Estrella? I wasn't even talking about Estrella. I don't understand why everyone is obsessing over Estrella. I was talking about Thiam, Bonke, etc. Top level 5s. I think this is obvious. The last 4 NCAA champs have all had formidable front courts and all of the final four this year had formidable front courts to complete a balanced attack. Surely you don't deny this, do you?
If you go back to the start of the conversation I was addressing that based on the things I’ve mentioned we likely didn’t few Estrella equally with other program. That’s why I’m hitting on this.

And you’re right. This year was dominated by some really good front courts. It was a bit of an exception, but that’s besides the point. More than being big, those teams have lots of good players.

I don’t think Thiam is especially good. I think Juke/Hill are better basketball players. I think they’re a better fit for Barnes’ offense. Money is a limited resource and I’d prefer the team to maximize value where the have to, height be darned, not being in a meh player just because he’s a 7-footer.

This year had a bunch of big frontcourts, but to act like it’s the price of entry for the final four when we’ve seen an abundance of programs succeed at small ball is misguided imo.
 
Estrella? I wasn't even talking about Estrella. I don't understand why everyone is obsessing over Estrella. I was talking about Thiam, Bonke, etc. Top level 5s. I think this is obvious. The last 4 NCAA champs have all had formidable front courts and all of the final four this year had formidable front courts to complete a balanced attack. Surely you don't deny this, do you?
I'm not sure I would refer to Illinois' frontcourt as elite. Tomislav Ivisic averaged 10.4 pts and 5.6 rebounds per game. David Mirkovic averaged 13.3 ppg and 8 rpg. JP Estrella's stats were nearly identical to Ivisic but with a higher fg% and lower FT%. Frontcourt certainly wasn't a weakness for them but I definitely wouldn't lump them in with the other three final four teams, particularly Michigan and Arizona.
 
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Turn the audio up so you can hear them talk about how Freshman Estrella is doing better than most of his older Big Ten Competition. The point has nothing to do with whether an eight foot Frankenstein with a ref immunity scored. The question was whether a healthy JP had defensive potential. Yes, he did.
No question JP defended Edey better than anyone we threw at him.
 
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