Uros Plavsic playing for Serbian Men's National Team in Paris Olympics
Uros Plavsic will be one of 32 athletes representing the University of Tennessee and their home countries during the Olympic Summer Games in Paris.
Plavsic, who has played professionally the last two years in Serbia, will make his Olympic debut with the Serbian men’s basketball team on a roster that includes three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic. Serbia is in Group C along with the United States, Puerto Rico and South Sudan. Serbia plays on Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday in group play.
Tennessee Basketball has two gold medal winners, with Ernie Grunfeld going 7-0 with Team USA in 1976 in Montreal and Allan Houston going 8-0 with the Americans in 2000 in Sydney.
32 former Vols and Lady Vols representing 19 countries in Paris Olympics
The 32 former student-athletes in the Summer Games is a new Tennessee record and the sixth most among NCAA schools — see the full list of athletes here. The Vols and Lady Vols had 20 athletes at the 2020 games to set the previous program record, with five medals won by former Tennessee athletes.
Tennessee will be represented in five Olympic sports: 3-on-3 women’s basketball, 5-on-5 men’s basketball, soccer, swimming, track and field and volleyball.
Plavsic started 45 times in 101 career games over four seasons at Tennessee from 2019 to 2023. He averaged 3.7 points and 2.8 rebounds in 11.3 minutes per game during his four seasons with the Vols.
He scored a career-high 19 points and played a career-high 26 minutes against Kentucky at Thompson-Boling Arena in 2023.
He started 20 times in 34 games in his final season, averaging a career-best 4.9 points and 3.4 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game. He shot 63.6 percent from the field. He averaged 4.2 points and 4.0 rebounds in 14.1 minutes per game as a junior in 2021-22, starting 21 times in 35 games.
Uros Plavsic played high school basketball at Hamilton Heights in Chattanooga
Plavsic played high school basketball at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga. He was first committed to Cleveland State before enrolling at Arizona State.
In his first season at Tennessee, Plavsic played 7.3 minutes per game, making three starts in 16 appearances. He averaged 2.6 points and 0.9 rebounds per game. He started once in 16 games the following season, in 2020-21, averaging 1.1 points and 1.1 rebounds in just 4.4 minutes per game.
Plavsic in November 2019 was initially ruled ineligible after transferring to Tennessee from Arizona State. The Vols appealed the decision but were turned down, but Plavsic was ruled eligible in January of the same season, just days before a game at Georgia where he made his debut with the Vols, scoring five points and grabbing three rebounds in 17 minutes.
