SEC Season Preview: Tennessee Brings in a New-Look Roster After Dalton Knecht Departs

Tennessee basketball is coming off a great 2023-24 campaign in which the Vols won the SEC regular season title and advanced to the Elite Eight. However, they’re entering this season without star forward Dalton Knecht, the SEC Player of the Year who was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers this summer. Knecht isn’t the only significant contributor Tennessee lost this offseason.

KSR+ is previewing SEC teams ahead of the 2024-25 season. We’ve already posted previews of Vanderbilt, South Carolina, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas, and Mississippi State. Now, we’re catching up with Grant Ramey of VolQuest to talk about the 2024-25 Tennessee Vols.

“Obviously, you’re trying to replace a Dalton Knecht,” Ramey told KSR+. “That’s really, really hard to do. They have a lot of pieces to replace because they lost Jonas Aidoo and Tobe Awaka. They lost Josiah Jordan-James and Santiago Vescovi. There were a couple of fifth-year seniors. Those are going to be really, really tough pieces to replace.”

In order to replace the lost pieces, Rick Barnes and Tennessee hit the portal hard. They landed Chaz Lanier (North Florida), Igor Milicic (Charlotte), Felix Okpara (Ohio State), and Darlinstone Dubar (Hofstra). The Vols also bring back a couple of key pieces in Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack.

“It feels like the Rick Barnes standard of defense will be there for this team,” Ramey said. “The question is what the offense looks like compared to what it looked like a year ago. How well can they play on the offensive end? How can they collectively replace the lost production from a Dalton Knecht? That’s going to be tough to do. They’re not going to rely on just one guy to do it. They feel like they should have a pretty good basketball team based on the way they replaced what they lost.”

Transfers Expected to Play a Big Role Early

Tennessee’s 2024 transfer class was ranked No. 27 in the nation by On3. With Chaz Lanier, Igor Milicic, Felix Okpara, and Darlinstone Dubar, there are four players who are expected to be relied on heavily.

“They were brought here to play big roles,” Ramey said. “They were brought here to fill pretty big shoes. Jonas Aidoo did a lot of good stuff here for the last couple of years. Tobe Awaka was doing a lot of good stuff for the last couple of years and had a high trajectory in the post.”

Okpara is likely to be the team’s starting center, while Milicic is likely to play the sixth man role. Lanier has perhaps the highest expectations on the team.

“People are going to see the numbers that he had at North Florida and the efficiency that he scored with and expect him to be Dalton Knecht 2.0,” Ramey said. “That’s not going to be fair. I don’t think anybody is going to be that guy for Tennessee this season.”

As for Dubar, he’s comparable to a player like Josiah Jordan-James on last year’s roster. They have a similar body type and can play similar roles on the court.

“You don’t have a ton of returning experience on this team, outside of Zakai and Jahmai,” Ramey said. “They’re going to have to play big roles and I think that’s what they’re going to do.”

Two of the Best Defenders in College Basketball?

Jahmai Mashack is expected to once again play a big role for Tennessee in 2024-25, but the biggest returning piece has to be 5-foot-9 guard Zakai Zeigler. Zeigler started 30 games for the Vols last season and averaged 11.8 points per game.

“They’re going to be two of the best defenders in college basketball,” Ramey said. “Zakai Zeigler has been a guy since he stepped on campus as a three-star, no-name point guard from New York, and he’s just quickly become the heart and soul of the program. He’s been that way for the last couple of years. Now, he’s the face of the program. This is his.”

Zeigler has shown his chops on the defensive end over the years. With Dalton Knecht gone, all eyes will be on his offense.

“The question for him is how much can he improve offensively,” Ramey said. “There’s been a lot of talk about him having a better jump shot going into his senior season and making some progress there. We’re going to have to see it consistently because he’s always been a defensive-first player. He can be a very, very good two-way player and we’ve seen that in stretches now. Are we going to see it when he’s relied on much more heavily than he has been in the past? ”

Who’s Going to Be the Guy to Step Up?

Last season, Tennessee had one player they relied on in clutch moments. That was, of course, Dalton Knecht. Who is it going to be this season?

“You have to find somebody to go and get you that bucket in that moment,” Ramey said. “Who’s going to be the guy they turn to down the stretch, closing games, to get them a huge bucket when they need it? Is it Zakai Zeigler, who’s running the offense, running the team? Do they drop it down in the post to Igor Milicic or Felix Okpara? Is it Chaz Lanier?”

Ramey also wants to see what different lineup combinations look like. With so many new additions, there are still some things that need to be worked out.

“[Lanier] is pretty much a three-level scorer, but does that happen in the game’s biggest moments? That’s my biggest question,” Ramey said. “I have questions about what the rotation looks like, who’s where, and what combinations work best, but in crunch times, where is the ball going? Who’s shooting the basketball and who’s scoring it? What does that look like as the season progresses?”

Tennessee Has a High Floor This Season

Rick Barnes has turned Tennessee into a team that’s regularly competing at the top of the SEC and primed to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. That hasn’t changed this season.

“Rick Barnes has set a pretty high floor for what Tennessee basketball should be with him as a head coach,” Ramey said. “They’re going to be elite on the defensive end, they’re going to be good enough on the offensive end to make that defense stand out, and they’re going to be a top-four team in the SEC, competing for an SEC title.”

After going to back-to-back Sweet 16’s, including an Elite Eight last season, fans expect the team to go deep in March. It feels like a baseline at this point.

“This team should be top four in the SEC and this team should be a second weekend NCAA Tournament team,” Ramey said.

While the expectations are high, the look might be different. That’s just the norm in the transfer portal era.

“It’s a new-look Tennessee basketball team,” Ramey said.