Tennessee Basketball announces three coaching staff promotions

Tennessee Basketball on Wednesday announced the promotion of Bryan Lentz and Lucas Campbell to assistant coaches and Riley Collins to assistant director of player development. 

Lentz previously worked as the director of player development for the Vols while Campbell was director of recruiting and Collins was a graduate assistant. 

In 2023 the NCAA expanded coaching staffs to add two additional assistant coaches.

Lentz had been Tennessee’s director of player development since 2018. He was an assistant coach at Appalachian State for four years, 2014-18, and worked for Rick Barnes as a special assistant and video coordinator at Texas from 2010-14. 

“Bryan has a strong basketball mind and possesses nearly a quarter-century of coaching experience,” Barnes said in a press release. “His passion for assisting the young men in our program become the absolute best they can be, both on and off the court, is unrivaled.

“We have shared a great deal of success together, both during his first six seasons at Tennessee and previously at Texas, and I know he will help our program continue its upward trajectory in his new role.”

He was an assistant coach from 2001-08 at Lenoir-Rhyne, where his father, John Lentz, was the longtime head coach.  

Lucas Campbell was a walk-on guard for Rick Barnes for four years

Campbell was a walk-on guard for the Vols from 2015-19, was part of the 2018 SEC Championship team and appeared in 16 games. He was a graduate assistant for Barnes from 2019-21 before being hired by former ETSU head coach Desmond Oliver as the director of basketball operations for the Bucs. He returned to Tennessee in 2022. 

“Over nearly a decade, I have seen Lucas grow from an eager walk-on freshman my first season here at Tennessee into now a rising star in the coaching profession,” Barnes said. “This school and this basketball program mean so much to Lucas.

“He has been a key part of our staff over the past two years and has played a major role in our strong recruiting efforts, which he will continue to do while taking on additional responsibilities he is assuredly ready for.”

Collins joined the Tennessee staff in the summer of 2022 as a graduate assistant. He worked at Division III Marymount University in Arlington, Va., from 2020-22. He was a guard and three-year captain at Division III Drew University in his home state of New Jersey. 

“From the first day he arrived at Tennessee, Riley has made his presence felt within our facility,” Barnes said. “He is a tireless worker who gives this program everything he can each day. After seeing all the ways Riley aided our program the past two years, it was clear he deserved a full-time position and I am thrilled he accepted that opportunity.”

Tennessee returns coaching staff intact for third straight season

Tennessee’s coaching staff returns intact for a third straight season, with Justin Gainey as the associate head coach and Rod Clark and Gregg Polinksy as assistant coaches.

Both Gainey and Clark were hired in 2022, replacing Oliver and Kim English after both were hired away as head coaches. Polinksy, a longtime NBA scout, came to Tennessee as a volunteer assistant in 2021 before being promoted to assistant coach a year later. 

Clark, who played a big role in getting Dalton Knecht to Tennessee, was courted by Michigan in the spring before opting to remain with the Vols. 

Gainey, the father of Tennessee senior shooting guard Jordan Gainey, coached Arizona and Marquette, among other places, after playing point guard at North Carolina State. 

Luke Schapker plays another integral role for the Vols behind the scenes as director of video and analytics. He started as a graduate assistant at Tennessee in 2018, was promoted to volunteer analyst in 2020 and to video coordinator in 2021, before starting under his current title in 2022.