Tennessee basketball to play three exhibition games during 10-day tour of Italy
Tennessee basketball will play three exhibition games during a 10-day tour through Italy in early August. The Vols on Thursday announced two games against the Lithuanian U21 National Team and another game against A.S. Stella Azzura.
The two games against the Lithuanian team will be August 4 and 5 in Florence. The game against A.S. Stella Azzura is August 7 in Rome. The trip starts in the Lake Como area, before Tennessee busses to Florence and later trains to Rome.
Video of the three exhibition games cane be streamed through FloSports, a subscription video service. Tennessee fans can purchase a one-month subscription to see the game.
| Date | Opponent | TIme |
| Friday, Aug. 4 | Lithuania U21 National Team (Florence) | 7 p.m. local / 1 p.m. ET |
| Saturday, Aug. 5 | Lithuania U21 National Team (Florence) | 7 p.m. local / 1 p.m. ET |
| Monday, Aug. 7 | A.S. Stella Azzurra (Rome) | 7:30 p.m. local / 1:30 p.m. ET |
Tennessee arrives in Italy July 31 and will stay through August 9. The trip will include a boat tour of Lake Como, a tour of the Florence Cathedral as well as sight-seeing at the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, the Colosseum and Vatican City.
The Vols are 19-7 all-time in international exhibition games. The Italy trip will be Tennessee’s seventh overseas, following trips to Spain in 1976, France and Italy in 1997, the Dominican Republic in 2003, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria in 2007, Italy in 2012 and Spain and France in 2017.
Tennessee will have a new-look roster in 2023-24, after adding three players from the NCAA Transfer Portal and three prep prospects. The Vols added Harvard forward Chris Ledlum, USC Upstate sophomore guard Jordan Gainey and Northern Colorado wing Dalton Knecht.
The 2023 signing class for Tennessee included four-star power forward JP Estrella, four-star wing Cameron Carr and three-star forward Cade Phillips.
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The exhibition games in Italy should help the Vols prepare for a tough opening month of the schedule. Tennessee goes to Wisconsin on November 10 at the Kohl Center in Madison and willl reportedly host Wofford at Thompson-Boling Arena on December 14.
Later in November they’ll play three games in the Maui Invitational against a field that includes Gonzaga, Kansas, Marquette, Purdue, Syracuse and UCLA. Illinois will come to Knoxville on December 9, the start of a home-and-home series that will continue at Illinois in 2024-25.
Tennessee will also scrimmage at Michigan State in October, after the Spartans made the trip for the closed-scrimmage in Knoxville last October. Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said Tuesday night at the Big Orange Caravan that the Vols have not yet decided what they’ll do for an exhibition game.
Last season Tennessee played Gonzaga in a televised exhibition game with proceeds going to charity.
“Our schedule we play,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said earlier this year, “we’ll start the season with a scrimmage against Michigan State up there. Then we’ll talk about what we want to do after that with an exhibition game or another one of the games where we can maybe do a charity game. Then Maui and all that. It’s going to help these young guys early.”
