Tennessee Basketball: 2024-25 season preview for the Volunteers

Recent years have seen the SEC become one of the nation’s best conferences for college basketball and Tennessee has absolutely played a role in that rise. The Volunteers have become a national contender again since Rick Barnes revitalized this program and are coming off a regular season title in the SEC. In fact, Tennessee has finished Top 4 in the conference in six of the last seven seasons.

Where things have often gone awry for the Volunteers is in the postseason, as Tennessee was upset by a lower-seed in five straight NCAA Tournament appearances. This past season helped end that trend, as the Volunteers marched to the Elite Eight as a 2-seed before falling to a very talented Purdue squad, just shy of the program’s first Final Four.

This program has been remarkably productive in recent seasons, with that aforementioned league title and other success. In an era where Alabama, Auburn, and several other programs have been on the rise, Tennessee has been just as potent. With the league adding Oklahoma and Texas this past offseason, the road ahead is even tougher, though Barnes and his squad look up for that challenge once again.

There is a flurry of new faces for the Volunteers, as they replace significant outgoing talent from recent years, but we’re not ready to remove Tennessee from the realms of the elite quite yet. Barnes and his crew have quite the assembly of talent in Knoxville once more and could have another special season. We’ll take a look at those faces, both old and new, take a peek at notable games on the schedule, and do our best to create some expectations for the Volunteers this season.