On Friday, the Vols landed the highest-rated recruit in the Rick Barnes era when four-star center/power forward D.J. Burns announced his commitment to Tennessee in the 2018 class. And the momentum is continuing for the Vols on the recruiting trail, this time in the 2019 class.
Two of Tennessee’s top targets in the 2019 class, point guard Tre Mann and power forward CJ Walker, have picked up crystal ball predictions for the Vols on 247Sports. Jerry Meyer, the Director of Basketball Scouting for 247Sports, gave a prediction for Tennessee to Walker and switched his previous pick of Florida for Mann to Tennessee. Andrew Slater of 247Sports also predicted Mann will end up at Tennessee.
Mann is arguably the Vols’ top target in the 2019 recruiting class. According to the 247Sports Composite rankings, he’s the No. 38 overall player and No. 4 point guard in the 2019 cycle. The 6-foot-1, 160 pound point guard from The Villages, Florida recently released his final three teams in his recruitment, and the Vols made the cut along with Florida and Kansas.
Kansas gave Mann an offer back on April 30th, and that offer changed his recruitment. It was perceived that Mann’s recruitment was down to essentially just Florida and Tennessee, but Kansas — one of college basketball’s blue bloods — gave him the late offer he had been hoping for.
Even still, the Vols and Gators are expected to be the favorites for Mann. And now it appears there’s some momentum with Tennessee in his recruitment.
Walker, like Mann, is one of the top 100 overall players in the 2019 cycle. He’s rated as the No. 90 overall player and No. 16 power forward in the class per the 247Sports Composite rankings. He also hails from Florida, and the 6-foot-7, 190 pound athlete from Orlando holds over two dozen scholarship offers.
Georgia is the most recent team to offer Walker, but he’s also picked up offers from Texas A&M and Arkansas over the last month. Tennessee offered him on April 30th. He also holds offers from Louisville, LSU, Georgetown, Memphis, Auburn, Xavier, and others.
The teams to watch for Walker along with Tennessee are Arkansas, Florida, and Louisville. He’s already unofficially visited Florida, and he’s likely to schedule a visit to the Razorbacks in the near future as well. The Vols will work to get him on their campus too.
Tennessee currently has only one player committed in their 2019 class, and that’s three-star small forward Davonte Gaines from New York. The Vols are expected to have at least three scholarships available in their 2019 class, but they could have as many as four if they don’t use their final scholarship available to them in their 2018 class. With Burns’ commitment on Friday, the Vols are projected to have 12 of their 13 scholarship positions taken for the upcoming 2018-19 season.
Both Mann and Walker figure to be Tennessee’s top two targets in the 2019 class, and the fact that they seem to be trending in the right direction for both is even more good news for what’s been a solid weekend for Tennessee basketball.
