Robert Hubbs III, SG
Overall ranking: 20th
Position ranking: 4th
Signing class: 2013
When Robert Hubbs III signed with the Vols, fans thought he might be another one-and-done type of player, or at the very least, he wouldn’t spend his entire four years at Tennessee.
Unfortunately, due to injuries and coaching turmoil, Hubbs never quite lived up to his billing as a five-star shooting guard.
As a true freshman in the 2013-14 season, Hubbs had to have season-ending shoulder surgery in January to address an injury that dated back to his senior season of high school. Hubbs only played in 12 games that season and was hampered by his injury, averaging just five points and 1.5 rebounds in 18.3 minutes per game off the bench.
After his freshman season, head coach Cuonzo Martin left Tennessee to go coach at California. Tennessee hired Donnie Tyndall, and Hubbs’ style didn’t necessarily mesh with what Tyndall wanted to do on offense. Plus, Hubbs still wasn’t 100 percent. In 32 games (including 20 starts), Hubbs averaged 7.2 points and 2.9 rebounds while making 33.3 percent of his 93 three-pointers. That would be his career-high in three-point shooting at Tennessee.
Hubbs again had to go through a coaching change after his sophomore season. Tyndall was fired after the NCAA ruled he had given impermissible benefits to student-athletes at Southern Miss before taking the Tennessee job. Athletics Director Dave Hart hired Rick Barnes as head coach, and Barnes and his staff were able to help Hubbs find more of himself in his junior season.
In his third year as a Vol, Hubbs averaged 10.6 points and 3.9 rebounds in 26.7 minutes a game. Hubbs played in 30 games and made 16 starts, but injuries were, again, an issue. He had to miss four games due to a knee issue in December, and his knee bothered him throughout the rest of the season.
Finally as a senior, Hubbs not only had the same head coach in back-to-back seasons for the first time in his UT career, but he was mostly healthy, too. He didn’t have the same explosiveness he did when he first signed on as a Vol thanks to his shoulder and knee ailments, but he put together his best season of his career in the 2016-17 campaign.
Hubbs was named a Second-Team All-SEC guard as a senior and ended up eclipsing the 1,000-point mark in his career. He played in all of Tennessee’s 32 games and started all of them. He led the Vols in scoring at 13.7 points a game, and he averaged a career-high 4.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists as a senior, too. He also shot a career-best 46.7 percent from the floor. and 83.8 percent from the free throw line.
The former five-star finished his Tennessee career as one of now only 50 players to score 1,000 career points at UT. His 1,046 career points rank 49th all-time in school history.
