KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — As Tennessee men's basketball season approaches with an exhibition game on Saturday against Lenoir–Rhyne , the team held a Media Day on Tuesday.
Head coach Rick Barnes and the entire team was made available.
Barnes said the team is excited to get on the floor this Saturday, but will be without one of their ley players when they do. Forward John Fulkerson, who was selected to the All-SEC First team by coaches on Tuesday, will be out. He is recovering from a broken thumb.
Fulkerson was wearing a cast on his hand to protect his thumb at practice on Tuesday.
"Last Saturday is when I injured it, but I'll be back in a couple of weeks," Fulkerson said. "It's healing great."
The star forward entering his sixth year is expected to return for the Vols in their regular season opener against UT Martin on Nov. 9. He is 11 appearances away from becoming the all-time leader in program history in career games.
Tennessee comes into the season ranked 18th in the nation by the Associated Press. The team has a lot of new and young fasces, but they're ready to put on a show for the fans that they missed last season.
"We think this group will give Vols nation a lot to be excited about,": Vols guard Josiah-Jordan James said.
Tennessee is coming off a season where they lost half of their last ten games, including a loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Cinderella surprise 12 seed Oregon State.
Barnes is looking for more consistency from his squad this year.
"I think where our consistency will be better is we've had a full year with these guys," he said referring to the restrictions COVID-19 put on the program. "I'll give a lot of credit to our older guys because I think they've done a good job of addressing what we ended with last year, which is leadership coming from within."
This team is expected to be good and have solid players at each position, but Barnes spoke highly of the point guards at Media Day,
Five star commit Kennedy Chandler, junior Santiago Vescovi and incoming freshman Zakai Ziegler are all expected to contribute. Barnes is high on all three.
"That position is probably the most competitive on the floor every single day," Barnes said. "All three of those guys are high level competitors. They are very dedicated and determined to get the most out of their ability."
Chandler's speed and ability to push the pace is expected to really help this team move faster and get easy buckets out in transition. He's touted as a solid passer and scorer. His defense is improving and it's something he said he wants to get better at too.
Barnes noted how Chandler is leading too.
On Tuesday before Media Day, the freshman texted his coach to ask how he can improve and how he can help his team too.
"You have to do that as a point guard," Chandler said. "You have to lead teammates, even though I'm a freshman. As a point guard I want to come in and lead my team."
The team has a lot of key pieces and they're excited for the season to begin on Saturday. They have high expectations of themselves moving forward.
"We can be as good as anybody," Vols forward Uros Plavsic said. There is going to be tough times, obviously there will be happy times, you just have to stick through it and stay locked in for the next opponent."
