Rick Barnes opens up on how Tennessee replaces Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack
The Tennessee Volunteers had 6 seniors on their 2024-25 basketball roster. Those players — Chaz Lanier, Zakai Ziegler, Jordain Gainey, Igor Milicic, Jahmai Mashack and Darlinstone Dunbar — each made more than 30 appearances last season and averaged a combined 62 points per game in route to a second straight Elite Eight.
As a whole, the Vols averaged 74.0 points per game in 2024-25. This mass exodus of talent is nothing new in the modern college basketball era, but the leadership void it creates in Tennessee’s locker room is an entirely different beast.
Head coach Rick Barnes dove into concerns about the Vols’ maintaining their culture despite those key personnel losses during the Vols’ in-house media day on Thursday. He admitted that culture carryover, or lack thereof, can be a team’s downfall.
“You do [worry about culture]. That was a big thing coming in. That’s why we believe the most important thing we can do is retention,” Barnes said. “When you talk about retention, you’re talking about guys that understand the way you do things, the way you want things done on a day-to-day basis, not just in this building, but away from here in everything they do, how we want our program represented.”
Tennessee doesn’t have much retention from its regular rotation, but there are 3 holdovers who played in at least 28 games last season: Felix Okpara, Cade Phillips, and Bishop Boswell. Fair or not, the onus of cultural continuity is on their shoulders. Luckily, Barnes believes they’ve taken the baton.
“I really do appreciate the older guys setting the tone for these young guys that come in… so much is so new to them,” Barnes said. “Until they go through the blender of it, the grind of it, it’s just really hard to explain to anybody… they think they can do it, but they realize… it’s harder than they think. And it’s supposed to be. But our older guys, I think, really do and have done a good job trying to explain to them and talk about what’s next, what we’re up against, and what we’ll be up against every night.”
Longtime walk-on Grant Hurst, who earned a scholarship for the 2025-26 campaign, is seemingly also key in this transition from Ziegler and Co. to the new Vol Basketball Era. Had he not demonstrated the grit necessary to succeed in Tennessee’s program following a transfer from UT-Martin in 2023, he wouldn’t be on scholarship this season. There’s no better proof of what commitment and devotion to a culture can do than that.
The Volunteers open their season versus Mercer on Nov. 3 (7:00 p.m. E.T.).