As with all college sports these days, Tennessee basketball has completely reloaded going into the 2025-26 season. Rick Barnes stiff-armed retirement rumors this spring despite losing the core of his program as Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack, Chaz Lanier and others hit the exits.
Barnes reshaped his roster by landing a dynamic senior point guard in Ja’Kobi Gillespie, along with five-star, potential top-five overall NBA selection, Nate Ament. And yet, according to any power rankings or preseason polls, Tennessee feels like an overthought once again.
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ESPN has them at 23rd. CBS Sports has them at 22nd. Joe Lunardi has them as a No. 3 seed, however.
The bracketologist projects Tennessee to return to Houston’s Midwest Region, where the Cougars are once again a projected No. 1 seed. No. 2 seed UConn, No. 4 seed Illinois and No. 5 seed Alabama join Tennessee in the mock run. Tennessee was slated to play 14-seed UNC Wilmington, potentially pairing up with No. 6 seed Texas Tech.
Duke, Purdue and Florida joined Houston as the projected No. 1 seeds. St. John’s, BYU, UConn and Michigan were all in the group ahead of Tennessee as projected No. 2 seeds.
Tennessee will certainly have a chance to explode onto the scene early this season.
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The new-look Volunteers will scrimmage Duke before things even start to count, then run a non-conference gauntlet that includes Houston, Louisville, Rutgers, Syracuse and Illinois. Beyond that awaits a daunting conference slate that includes a completely loaded month of January.
The SEC put 14 teams in the NCAA Tournament one season ago. Can Rick Barnes and Tennessee survive and secure another top-16 overall seed in March after running the gauntlet once again? It’s going to be mighty interesting to see without Zeigler and Mashack running the show.
