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Tennessee's Olivier Nkamhoua hits the portal

robby:Rob Lewis•03/30/23•

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Olivier Nkamhoua
ORLANDO, FL - MARCH 16: Olivier Nkamhoua #13 of the Tennessee Volunteers dunks against the Louisiana Lafayette Ragin Cajuns during the first round of the 2023 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament held at Amway Center on March 16, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

Tennessee ‘lost’ the first player off of it’s roster to the ever popular transfer route with this afternoon’s news that Oliver Nkamhoua had entered the portal as a graduate transfer.

Nkamhoua technically had the option to return to Tennessee for a ‘Covid’ year, but had never really expressed an intention to do that. So doesn’t exactly feel like a loss as it didn’t seem like Tennessee expected Nkamhoua to return next season.

As a senior Nkamhoua was wildly inconsistent, but when he was ‘on’ he turned in several of the most explosive and efficient offensive performances of the season for Tennessee.

He tied a program record for made field goals without a miss in January at South Carolina when he went 10-for-10 from the floor with 23 points.

On Jan. 28 against Texas, in one of the Vols’ signature wins of the season, Nkamhoua went off for 27 points on 12-of-15 shooting as Tennessee dispatched the Longhorns 82-71.

He had one of the greatest offensive performances in program history earlier this month when he helped knock Duke out of the tournament with 27 points in the Vols 65-52 win over the Blue Devils.

It was the third highest point total for a Tennessee player in NCAA Tournament history. In that dominant outing Nkamhoua 10-for-13 from the field. He scored 23 points in the second half against Duke and 13 straight at one point late in the second half.

Nkamhoua finished the year as Tennessee’s second leading scorer at 10.8 ppg and the team’s leading rebounder at 5.0 rpg. A versatile performer, Nkamhoua became just the sixth Vol ever to average at least 10.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists for an entire season this year, joining Bernard King, Ernie Grunfeld, Vincent Yarbrough, Tyler Smith and Grant Williams.

He was the only Tennessee player to start all 32 games this season, averaging 25.3 minutes per game.

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