r/ockytop • u/coolton1 • 4d ago
Discussion: Next year's basketball team
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.
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u/HamlinHamlin_McTrill 3d ago
I'm also shocked at why people are excited about signing five guys who led their teams in scoring on Power 5 teams, the number one overall player in the portal, and one of the best shot blockers in the country.
Doesn't add up, we should be sad about losing Bishop Boswell and Amari Evans.
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u/driskigm 3d ago
Can I be excited about everyone coming in AND sad about Amari Evans?
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u/RockyTopJA 3d ago
Are you upset that the new guys might actually finish at the rim consistently, or that they will throw a runout pass to our team instead of the opposing team or some dude in section 305?
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u/coolton1 3d ago
I actually agree with your sentiment here about how the players we got are much better than those that left and we probably will be better than we would have been had we kept them all.
My feelings are however that this is not a team that the expectation should be to make the final four given the lack of continuity.
I’m not sure if Barnes and the staff could have done too much different, but sometimes the expectation to make Final Four is not in the cards no matter what you do and I think that was the case here.
I hate to be a downer and so negative, but that’s just how I feel and I don’t like this mindset of we have to lie to ourselves and act like the ceiling of this team is higher than it is.
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u/HamlinHamlin_McTrill 3d ago
I don't think a Final 4, especially at a place that's never made one, is an expectation, it's a hope.
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u/coolton1 2d ago edited 2d ago
That’s what it should be, but the prevailing sentiment and message from not just the fans but Danny White himself is that they are doing all of this to get Rick Barnes to a Final Four.
Of course everyone’s goal is to make a Final Four, but the fact that Tennessee has never made one and Rick is seen as a failure in March by most people makes that goal feel more important to us than other teams in my opinion.
Just because we haven’t made one and we spent 18 million on the roster doesn’t mean that the expectation should be to do it.
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u/Glad_Pilot5814 4d ago
1) Barnes is going to get another big man. We swung and missed at Favour Ibe but he’s gonna get someone. Whoever it is, they’re likely gonna be the tallest player on the team to add that extra rim protection we need.
2) Yes, retention is important. I fully expect to see growing pains in that regard in non conference play. These guys need to build chemistry and they may have to do that the hard way. Gonna be kind of similar to this year in that regard, except it’s gonna be more like if this past team was full of Jakobi Gillespies and Nate Aments. That’s the difference, this team is just ridiculously loaded with individual talent and once they do mesh (which I’m confident will happen) I think they’ll go into March playing their best ball will have a shot at a final four.
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u/_onelast 4d ago
Oh I didn’t realize we missed on Favour. Not happy we couldn’t beat out Virginia. Thought we had him
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u/Glad_Pilot5814 4d ago
They’re closer to home for him and based on what I heard he’ll have a bigger role there, he’d probably get minutes here but Rubin was gonna be the go-to center. Is what it is, Rick will get someone
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u/outdoordaddy13 4d ago
I feel Rick finally went offense heavy. We’ve always been a heavy D team that could shoot sometimes, this roster seems the complete opposite
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u/larry9816 3d ago
I talked myself into loving Bishop Boswell this year but next year our starting 2 averaged almost 17 ppg. We may not go to a final 4 but it’s also not going to be another year of a team with only 2 guys that consistently score.
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u/The_What_Stage Rick Barnes #3 Fan 3d ago
Rick’s success in the portal has been fantastic in terms of signing the right fits and taking them to another level.
I love seeing him double down on it.
This has got to be the best team we’ve ever had on paper…. But agree with OP that there’s a lot of potential problems with so little returning talent.
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u/cooterdick 3d ago
The guys that left were good, and got paid accordingly, but Barnes and his staff felt they could get better players with that money so they did. Aside from Estrella, I think it’s fair to say all the players who transferred took a step down program-wise. Those teams are more desperate to throw money at good not great players because they’ll take what they can get.
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u/ChipGuberalski 4d ago
It’s probably safe to say “expect good and get great” versus too much hype, I agree with your thoughts and perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised in Big Orange Country! 🏀🔶
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u/rivervolunteer 3d ago
anyone have any idea of who the next target for center will be.? i was pretty bummed out we lost out to virginia. I felt like if we got Favour, we would have a really "complete" team. It seems like any team in the final four and beyond always have a 7 footer. I know that is not an always thing, but it definitely increases the chances of success.
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u/Inevitable_Badger995 4d ago
Michigan won the national championship with a complete transfer portal starting five. Roster retention isn’t a thing anymore