Next Up – Tennessee Volunteers

Exhibition games are interesting and fun for fans, but since they don’t count, they typically don’t mean much. But there are exceptions. Look at some games from this past weekend, for instance:

Indiana (featuring former Blue Devil Darren Harris) beat UNC 76-58

NC State beat Mississippi State, 77-73

Maryland beat West Virginia 90-81 (OT)

Baylor beat Florida 82-76 (OT)

And most extraordinarily St. John’s beat Rutgers, 104-99 (4 OT)

So none of these games count, but for UNC to get hammered by IU? That means something. NC State taking out Mississippi State? That also means something. Baylor knocking off Florida in OT? That’ll raise some eyebrows. And Rutgers playing a 60-minute game vs. the Johnnies? You know that meant something.

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No one much cares about Maryland vs. West Virginia, but you can’t have everything.

Duke vs. Tennessee? Now that’s likely to carry some weight.

We believe this will be UT’s first visit to Cameron since 1975, when the Ernie and Bernie show flew in and dazzled the Cameron faithful with a spectacular warm-up routine before narrowly nipping the Blue Devils, 86-80.

Bernie was Bernard King, if you didn’t know, and Ernie was Ernie Grunfeld.

Tennessee is now coached by Rick Barnes, and since at least his Clemson days, Barnes has liked to put together big, bruising teams. Well, this one is going to be a bit different.

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Barnes took a deep portal dive this year and emerged with nine new players: Tyler Lundblade (Belmont), Jalen Haralson (Notre Dame), Juke Harris (Wake Forest), Terrence Hill Jr. (VCU), Dai Dai Ames (California), Miles Rubin (Loyola Chicago), Christian Fermin (VCU), Braedan Lue (Kennesaw State), and Jalen Washington (Vanderbilt/UNC) are all Volunteers now. Freshmen Manny Green, Marquis Clark, Ralph Scott, Chris Washington Jr., also arrive.

Only DeWayne Brown, Gavin Paull, Campbell Duncan, and Troy Henderson return.

To be clear, Barnes still has some bruisers. Brown is 6-8/248, Washington is 6-10/244, Lue is 6-8/243, and Fermin is…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/next-tennessee-volunteers-110000037.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-19 11:00:00

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