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Tennessee Volunteers
28-9 (NCAA Tournament -- Elite Eight)
Expectations will undoubtedly be high on Rocky Top this season after Bruce Pearl led Tennessee to its first Elite Eight in school history. But the man in the Creamsicle orange blazer doesn't want the college basketball world to ignore the fact that he will be without three starters from the squad that came within two points of the Final Four. "People forget we lost almost as much as Kentucky did," Pearl says of departed seniors Wayne Chism, J.P. Prince, Bobby Maze and Tyler Smith, the last of whom was dismissed mid-season after a New Year's Day run-in with police.
Pearl certainly has a point: Gone are his leading scorer and rebounder (Chism; 12.6 ppg, 7.2 rpg), his top two in assists (Maze and Prince) and his two best defenders in Chism (team leader in blocks) and Prince (tops in steals). Unfortunately, Pearl won't be receiving any sympathy cards from teams in the SEC East, a division that will provide Tennessee with one of the toughest conference schedules in the country.
Florida returns all five starters, Vanderbilt and Georgia return all but one and Kentucky brought in the top recruiting class of 2010 in the ESPNU 100. "Those four teams will no doubt be in the top 25 in the country at some point," says Pearl, who has taken Tennessee to the NCAA tournament in all five seasons since arriving in Knoxville. "And I'd put us in there, as well."
That optimism stems from seven regular-rotation returning players, two instant-impact transfers and a recruiting class that missed the top 10 by only one spot. Whether or not the Vols can survive their brutal SEC slate will be up to two former McDonald's All-Americans -- one of whom is still trying to prove he deserved the hype while the other is still adjusting to campus life.
Welcome to Campus
Tobias Harris, 6-foot-8, PF
(ESPNU 100 No. 6)
Here's what Harris managed in his final two seasons as the top prep product in the state of New York: Mr. Basketball and Gatorade Player of the Year honors as a senior after averaging 25 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks to lead Half Hollow Hills West (Dix Hills, N.Y.) to the Class-AA state championship game. As a junior, he averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds to lead Long Island Lutheran to a Class-A state title. He'll enter as the second McDonald's All-American for Pearl, joining junior Scotty Hopson (more on him later). "Tobias saw an opportunity to play and contribute right away," Pearl says. "He also saw the chance to take control of a UT program that's never been to the Final Four."
Even though Harris broke his foot in the McDonald's game and won't be cleared to play until sometime in August, Pearl isn't worried about the most talked-about recruit in his tenure suffering freshman growing pains. "He's the kind of player who's never 'out,'" Pearl says of Harris, who's added 10 pounds (now 220) to his upper body and put in work on his jumper this summer. "You can tell, just him being on campus that he has a different level of discipline, and he's already proven to be one of our hardest workers."
Jordan McRae, 6-6, SG
(ESPNU 100 No. 38)
McRae was ranked higher than fellow Georgian and Tennessee signee Trae Golden (6-1), but the two should probably be side-by-side here. Golden, whom Scouts, Inc., rated as an off-guard, is more suited to play the point as opposed to McRae's athletic-wing frame. The two were teammates on the 2010 adidas Nations U.S. National Team and the Atlanta Celtics AAU squad. Pearl says Golden, who was a Georgia Mr. Basketball, will push senior Melvin Goins for the starting PG position, while McRae will be a "high-flying" replacement to the departed dunker Prince.
Jeronne Maymon, 6-6, SF; John Fields, 6-9, PF (Transfers)
Maymon, who transferred from Marquette mid-season in 2009-10, has to sit one more semester before he can suit up as a sophomore for the Vols. But the former Wisconsin Mr. Basketball and ESPNU 100 prospect should be a lift when he joins sophomore Kenny Hall and junior Renaldo Woolridge, in the post. As will the senior Fields, a graduate transfer who played two seasons at East Carolina and one at UNC-Wilmington, where he averaged a team-best 8.7 rebounds and scored 10.2 points per game.
Hole to Fill: Defense
Only Kentucky had a more efficient defense in the SEC this past season than the Vols, who allowed 88.5 points per 100 possessions, ranking 11th in the nation, which was due in large part to Chism and Prince. Without them, the post and perimeter will be a scary place for Pearl's team if the aforementioned freshmen and transfers don't quickly acclimate. This is also where Hopson must make a name for himself. Sure, he has to up his 12.2 ppg average as the team's go-to scorer, but the rangy, 6-7 wing needs to raise his all-around game (3.4 rpg, 1.0 spg, 0.2 bpg in 2009-10) if pro scouts are going to finally see him for the first-round pick he was projected to be out of high school.
New Role: Brian Williams
Just look at the stat sheet during the Vols' tournament run and you'll see why Williams is in for a breakout season. The senior, who sat out 10 games after being involved in the Jan. 1 incident that got Smith booted, posted 7.5 ppg and 10.3 rpg from Round 1 through the Elite Eight, nearly doubling his career averages and logging 30 minutes in a game for the first time in his career. He finally displayed the double-double talent that Pearl recruited out of the Bronx. "The way he played down the stretch last season is the way I expected him to play at Tennessee the last three years," Pearl says. "He can have any role he chooses on this team if he plays that way every time out."
Summer School
The Pilot Rocky Top League has become a rite of passage. In its third season, the six-team PRTL consists of incoming, current and former UT players, and 11 of Pearl's Vols, including freshmen McRae and Golden, put on a run-and-gun show in front of a standing-room-only crowd at a small high school gym in Knoxville. Hopson, who led the league with 34.0 ppg, earned MVP honors, and Woolridge, who was second with 30.0 ppg, received the league's most-improved award. While Pearl admits his players don't better their defensive skill set, the camaraderie is a major plus. And the helter-skelter pace does have its upside. "One thing it does is put guys in situations they may not be asked to be in during the season," Pearl says, speaking specifically of junior wing Cameron Tatum, who was fourth (29.0) in the PRTL in scoring even though he won't be called upon to be the first or even second option for Tennessee.
Meanwhile, UT's first option, Hopson, was a member of the 20-player USA Select Team and impressed at the Nike LeBron James Skills Academy, where Jay Bilas called him the "best athlete and the most fluid player at the camp." The question is whether or not that same player show up in Thompson-Boling Arena this season.
Tennessee Volunteers
28-9 (NCAA Tournament -- Elite Eight)
Expectations will undoubtedly be high on Rocky Top this season after Bruce Pearl led Tennessee to its first Elite Eight in school history. But the man in the Creamsicle orange blazer doesn't want the college basketball world to ignore the fact that he will be without three starters from the squad that came within two points of the Final Four. "People forget we lost almost as much as Kentucky did," Pearl says of departed seniors Wayne Chism, J.P. Prince, Bobby Maze and Tyler Smith, the last of whom was dismissed mid-season after a New Year's Day run-in with police.
Pearl certainly has a point: Gone are his leading scorer and rebounder (Chism; 12.6 ppg, 7.2 rpg), his top two in assists (Maze and Prince) and his two best defenders in Chism (team leader in blocks) and Prince (tops in steals). Unfortunately, Pearl won't be receiving any sympathy cards from teams in the SEC East, a division that will provide Tennessee with one of the toughest conference schedules in the country.
Florida returns all five starters, Vanderbilt and Georgia return all but one and Kentucky brought in the top recruiting class of 2010 in the ESPNU 100. "Those four teams will no doubt be in the top 25 in the country at some point," says Pearl, who has taken Tennessee to the NCAA tournament in all five seasons since arriving in Knoxville. "And I'd put us in there, as well."
That optimism stems from seven regular-rotation returning players, two instant-impact transfers and a recruiting class that missed the top 10 by only one spot. Whether or not the Vols can survive their brutal SEC slate will be up to two former McDonald's All-Americans -- one of whom is still trying to prove he deserved the hype while the other is still adjusting to campus life.
Welcome to Campus
Tobias Harris, 6-foot-8, PF
(ESPNU 100 No. 6)
Here's what Harris managed in his final two seasons as the top prep product in the state of New York: Mr. Basketball and Gatorade Player of the Year honors as a senior after averaging 25 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks to lead Half Hollow Hills West (Dix Hills, N.Y.) to the Class-AA state championship game. As a junior, he averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds to lead Long Island Lutheran to a Class-A state title. He'll enter as the second McDonald's All-American for Pearl, joining junior Scotty Hopson (more on him later). "Tobias saw an opportunity to play and contribute right away," Pearl says. "He also saw the chance to take control of a UT program that's never been to the Final Four."
Even though Harris broke his foot in the McDonald's game and won't be cleared to play until sometime in August, Pearl isn't worried about the most talked-about recruit in his tenure suffering freshman growing pains. "He's the kind of player who's never 'out,'" Pearl says of Harris, who's added 10 pounds (now 220) to his upper body and put in work on his jumper this summer. "You can tell, just him being on campus that he has a different level of discipline, and he's already proven to be one of our hardest workers."
Jordan McRae, 6-6, SG
(ESPNU 100 No. 38)
McRae was ranked higher than fellow Georgian and Tennessee signee Trae Golden (6-1), but the two should probably be side-by-side here. Golden, whom Scouts, Inc., rated as an off-guard, is more suited to play the point as opposed to McRae's athletic-wing frame. The two were teammates on the 2010 adidas Nations U.S. National Team and the Atlanta Celtics AAU squad. Pearl says Golden, who was a Georgia Mr. Basketball, will push senior Melvin Goins for the starting PG position, while McRae will be a "high-flying" replacement to the departed dunker Prince.
Jeronne Maymon, 6-6, SF; John Fields, 6-9, PF (Transfers)
Maymon, who transferred from Marquette mid-season in 2009-10, has to sit one more semester before he can suit up as a sophomore for the Vols. But the former Wisconsin Mr. Basketball and ESPNU 100 prospect should be a lift when he joins sophomore Kenny Hall and junior Renaldo Woolridge, in the post. As will the senior Fields, a graduate transfer who played two seasons at East Carolina and one at UNC-Wilmington, where he averaged a team-best 8.7 rebounds and scored 10.2 points per game.
Hole to Fill: Defense
Only Kentucky had a more efficient defense in the SEC this past season than the Vols, who allowed 88.5 points per 100 possessions, ranking 11th in the nation, which was due in large part to Chism and Prince. Without them, the post and perimeter will be a scary place for Pearl's team if the aforementioned freshmen and transfers don't quickly acclimate. This is also where Hopson must make a name for himself. Sure, he has to up his 12.2 ppg average as the team's go-to scorer, but the rangy, 6-7 wing needs to raise his all-around game (3.4 rpg, 1.0 spg, 0.2 bpg in 2009-10) if pro scouts are going to finally see him for the first-round pick he was projected to be out of high school.
New Role: Brian Williams
Just look at the stat sheet during the Vols' tournament run and you'll see why Williams is in for a breakout season. The senior, who sat out 10 games after being involved in the Jan. 1 incident that got Smith booted, posted 7.5 ppg and 10.3 rpg from Round 1 through the Elite Eight, nearly doubling his career averages and logging 30 minutes in a game for the first time in his career. He finally displayed the double-double talent that Pearl recruited out of the Bronx. "The way he played down the stretch last season is the way I expected him to play at Tennessee the last three years," Pearl says. "He can have any role he chooses on this team if he plays that way every time out."
Summer School
The Pilot Rocky Top League has become a rite of passage. In its third season, the six-team PRTL consists of incoming, current and former UT players, and 11 of Pearl's Vols, including freshmen McRae and Golden, put on a run-and-gun show in front of a standing-room-only crowd at a small high school gym in Knoxville. Hopson, who led the league with 34.0 ppg, earned MVP honors, and Woolridge, who was second with 30.0 ppg, received the league's most-improved award. While Pearl admits his players don't better their defensive skill set, the camaraderie is a major plus. And the helter-skelter pace does have its upside. "One thing it does is put guys in situations they may not be asked to be in during the season," Pearl says, speaking specifically of junior wing Cameron Tatum, who was fourth (29.0) in the PRTL in scoring even though he won't be called upon to be the first or even second option for Tennessee.
Meanwhile, UT's first option, Hopson, was a member of the 20-player USA Select Team and impressed at the Nike LeBron James Skills Academy, where Jay Bilas called him the "best athlete and the most fluid player at the camp." The question is whether or not that same player show up in Thompson-Boling Arena this season.
