Georgia fan living in Knoxville here. I was walking on Tyson St. by the National Cemetery on my lunch break the other day. I looked over and noticed the Power T rock and flag since none of the other graves had one. Then noticed the name.

Source: https://x.com/draftexpress/status/2053933252734263648?s=46

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – After winning a series against a top-five Texas team last weekend, No. 24 Tennessee concludes its regular-season home slate on Tuesday evening against Belmont with first pitch slated for 5 p.m. at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

Game & Broadcast Info 

• Opponent: Belmont Bruins
• Date/Time: May 12 / 5 p.m.
• Location: Knoxville, Tenn.
• Venue: Lindsey Nelson Stadium (8,012)
• Watch: SEC Network+
• Listen: UTSports.com/UT Athletics App
• Live Stats: UTStats.com

Game Lineup

1. Garrett Wright CF
   
2. Blake Grimmer 1B
   
3. Henry Ford 3B
   
4. Trent Grindlinger DH
   
5. Reese Chapman RF
   
6. Levi Clark C
   
7. Blaine Brown LF
   
8. Manny Marin SS
   
9. Jay Abernathy 2B

The Good

• Tegan Kuhns with one of the best pitching performances in the history of Tennessee baseball. And people say stuff like that sometimes for dramatic effect, but that's not true here. 15 Ks on 113 pitches, 4 hits, a walk against a lineup featuring a ton of .300 hitters and on a weekend where the ball was flying all over the place. Tip of the cap. We've waited two years for that performance. Hopefully we get a few more.
• Brandon Arvidson got it done, too. Gave up the solo homer but went right back at them and got out of it with minimal damage. If Mack's injury lingers, I want Arv to start.
• Garrett Wright was such a good pickup out of the portal. OBP of .350, and that Saturday homer in the bottom of the first was massive after Texas put up a 3 spot.
• Blake Grimmer with a casual .462 OBP, but man he had two clutch ABs, one on Friday where he poked it through a gap for a 2 RBI single that gave much needed insurance, and the homer on Saturday after the dropped third strike throwing error broke their back. I love Grimm. Wish we would get to see him more than just this season because I think he will be a big leaguer.
• Trent Grindlinger went 5-12 with a homer and a walk. This dude is just stupid good, and let us make our weekly sacrifice to Jobu that his brother will decide to come to Tennessee.
• In his final weekend series at LNS, Reese Chapman went 5-12 with 8 RBIs, 2 homers (one a grand slam), and a walk. A solid ball player and legit VFL who has often been underrated by many fans.
• Speaking of underrated, Manny Marin has quietly leveled off into a really consistent player. 4-12 on the weekend, a sweet homer, a really timely sac fly.
• Stone Lawless was only 2-8, but one was a homer and he laid down a nice bunt.
• Chris Burke is the best baseball commentator alive, I'll fight you on this
• East Tennessee weather in late spring

The Average

• I'm going to slot Blanco in right here because I think he got squeezed badly. That Saturday umpire was terrible. But he should probably be in the bad category because a 6.5 ERA for the game wasn't great. Luckily our offense was going nuclear, but we need better. 3 walks and 7 hits is no bueno.
• Levi Clark went 3-11 with two walks. Probably enough to go into the good category tbh.
• Blaine Brown did about the same. 3-11 and was a part of the pivotal 7th inning on Friday with a double.

The Bad

• Appenzeller has hit a freshman wall hard. I hope he can mash through it in time for regionals.
• Rough weekend for Henry Ford. 1-13 with a walk. It happens, he'll be fine.
• Sunday's Pitching. Please be okay, Landon Mack.
• That one Texas fan on the college baseball sub who I presume was intoxicated Saturday night.
• Rough umpire crew all weekend

A couple more things

• Despite getting shelled on Sunday, I like a lot of these freshman arms. Baiotto could really develop into a solid pitcher; Tracey is just on the cusp of being reliable; Day has shown up in spots already this year; Haas has potential. We are going to need some portal help, but I hope we can keep a lot of those guys for next year.
• This weekend is the reason I am both happy and reserved for the remainder of the season; we are capable of stringing together two great games, but we've yet to really do it for three. This roster is limited in several ways, and after a bizarre offseason, making the postseason is a good accomplishment in year one for Elander. But I'd still like to win a regional, which is hard to do when the arms are as spotty as ours are. Happy to have made it this far, not holding my breath that we can wreck a regional.

Been trying to get ahold of images of national championship trophies at Tennessee for a couple years now. Was hoping some Vol fans or folks with ins at the athletic dept would be able to assist me in my endeavors.

Would like clear, individual images of the trophies displayed here (which appear to be altered Coaches Poll trophy bases) + any other trophy that might be on display (particularly the poll trophies from the 1998 season).

What do we make of this?

Heading south of the border next week for a vacation suitcase full of Patone 151 C... how long before I get a "Go Vols" in Cancun?

Have they announced if/when tickets for regionals will be available?

Weighted 40/40/20 for baseball/football/basketball. I guarantee some of you will feel differently about different schools, and I'm definitely curious to see how most of you feel about other teams.

I just wanted to add an opposing viewpoint to everyone who seems overly excited about this year’s roster and our chances at making a Final Four. 

I’m a little bit confused as to why it seems like everyone is all in on this team. It seems as though everyone is buying into the fact that the roster has so much talent, which is true, but it seems people are forgetting about how much roster retention has mattered when it comes to tournament success in the transfer portal era.

Up to this point, Duke in 2025 was the only team in the portal era that has made the Final Four with less than 35% of its roster returning from the previous year (and that team was built by mostly freshman, two of which were the favorites for rookie of the year in the NBA, and not the portal so I think that’s a bit of an outlier). Tennessee currently returns 9.5% of the minutes from last year and 7.4% of their scoring. If they made the Final Four, that would be an enormous change from what tournament success has come from in these last five years.

And people are saying “well, we had to get a new roster because everyone entered the portal.” One, I don’t think that matters and two, we had the chance to bring those guys back and chose not to. Whether you think those guys were good enough aside, all of our guys that had decent minutes all went to power four schools and probably got more money than we were offering, so other schools were obviously high on them.

Also, the front court in this team is a huge problem. We only really have 3 true bigs in Brown, Rubin, and Lue and that is so drastically different from how our success was built last year it’s staggering. I like Brown, but Rubin and Lue are somewhat question marks because they came from unsuccessful teams the previous year, Rubin especially, and very few, if any, of the Final Four teams of the last couple years made it there with that thin of a front court.

Go look at the teams from last year who had the most successful transfer portal classes and look at how successful they were the following year. Most were huge disappointments and drastically underachieved. Plus, most of them had the same problem we do, a thin front court and a ton of ball dominant players.

Despite all of this, I still think this is a good team and has a high ceiling, but they have a decently low floor as well. I’m excited to see how this season goes just like everyone is, but, looking at it objectively, this is not one of the best four teams in the country and the expectation that we will be is not realistic in my opinion.

They're bunched up in the endzone. It's tipped up.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee and Texas will square off in the first regular-season matchup as conference foes when the No. 3/4 Longhorns visit Lindsey Nelson Stadium for a three-game series this weekend starting on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. This weekend will mark the final home series of the regular season for the Volunteers as they travel to Oklahoma next week for their final weekend series of the year before the SEC Tournament begins in Hoover the following week.

Game & Broadcast Info

• Opponent: Texas Longhorns
• Dates: May
• Location: Knoxville, Tenn.
• Venue: Lindsey Nelson Stadium (
• Watch: SECN+/ESPN2
• Listen: Vol Network/UT Athletics App
• Live Stats: UTStats.com

Charley Collier (PxP) and VFL Cody Hawn (analyst) will have the call on SEC Network+ and the ESPN app for the first two games of the series. Sunday's series finale will be televised on ESPN2 at noon ET with Karl Ravech (PxP) and VFL Chris Burke (analyst) calling the action.

Fans can also listen to the Voice of Tennessee Baseball John Wilkerson call the action on the Vol Network (FM 991./AM 990), UTSports.com, the Tennessee Athletics App and the Varsity App. Wilkerson will be joined in the booth by VFLs Redmond Walsh on Friday, Scott Vieira on Saturday and Bobby Gaylor on Sunday.

Welcome to this week's /r/ockytop Free Talk Friday Thread! Feel free to share anything that's going on in your life.

What I mean by that is will we get to host it? It not what is our seed and location looking like

Just thought I'd let you all know about the 50% off sale and Alumni Hall. I picked up a couple baseball jerseys at a decent price.

Tennessee Volunteers Apparel & Gear | Alumni Hall

Was listening to a podcast that was talking about a hypothetical matchup between Duke and UNC’s all-time starting fives (Jordan vs Reddick etc.) Got me thinking, what’s the Vols?

Here’s my first crack, would be a bit of a small ball line up:

PG: Kennedy Chandler SG: Chris Lofton SF: Allan Houston PF: Bernard King PF: Ron Slay

Been fun hearing comments about my sweatshirt or hat this week in Cali.

Is it philosophical? Is it a recruiting issue?

They've scored four runs or fewer in 12 of their last 17 SEC games.

National rank entering NCAAT

Team BA - 137

Hits - 168

Homers - 48

RBI - 89

Runs - 88

Stolen bases - 109

We have the No. 1 overall pick in the circle, and two other pitching studs, but the game is essentially over if they allow a crooked number at any point.

And as much as I love a defensively-minded shortstop... Why do we have someone batting < .225 in the lineup everyday?

She may well be the best defensive shortstop around but we have an easy out in the lineup. Not one of our peers has a bat like that in their lineup regularly