Tennessee basketball is a week into its preseason practice and already has a myriad of players sidelined for numerous reasons.
Point guard Zakai Zeigler, small forward D.J. Jefferson and power forwards J.P. Estrella and Tobe Awaka are all currently sidelined and were not full participants in Tuesday afternoon’s practice open to the media.
Zeigler is the most obvious player sidelined as he continues to work back from tearing his ACL in his left knee on the final day of February. He did some slight team work during Tuesday’s practice but largely worked off to the side.
“Zakai’s not back out there totally,” Barnes said. “He’s doing a little bit right now. I would say that I think he, Chad (Newman) and Garrett (Medenwald) would probably tell you they think he’s probably ahead of schedule, but he has done a little bit at the start of practice each day and we back him down. Now if it were up to him, he’d practice the entire time, but we won’t let him.”
Power forward Tobe Awaka is sidelined in the short term due to concussion protocols. However, the sophomore big man was a full participant in the Vols’ in-house media day and worked off to the side during practice.
Awaka is expected to return to practice sometime in the next week.
Freshman big man J.P. Estrella being sidelined is maybe the most important. As assistant coach Rod Clark told RTI Tuesday, repetition is the most important thing for young big men. The Vols were hopeful that Estrella would be a lesser used rotation player this season but his injury is making that less likely.
“JP (Estrella) hasn’t really done much all since we started here regular season,” Barnes said of Estrella. “He’s got a fractured finger he’s been dealing with.”
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Clark told RTI that the injury occurred earlier in the fall and Estrella played through the pain for a stretch before Tennessee realized it was fractured. The Vols think Estrella will be back as a full practice participant later this week so the injury isn’t expected to linger to the start of the season.
Like Zeigler and Awaka, Estrella was at Tennessee’s Tuesday practice working off to the side.
Redshirt freshman wing D.J. Jefferson is the final player currently sidelined for Tennessee and the only one because of a reason other than an injury.
“DJ (Jefferson has) missed the last couple practices just due to the fact that he hasn’t lived up to what we want him to do and all that facets of the program,” Barnes said.
No one inside the Tennessee basketball program used the word suspension related to Jefferson but that was the implication. Jefferson was active during the media day portion of Tuesday’s availability but wasn’t on the court with his teammates during practice.
Jefferson redshirted as a freshman for Tennessee last season and Barnes raved about the athletic wing’s growth over the summer.
With the four players sidelined, the Vols currently only have nine scholarship players active. That’s made for a lot of competition and an abundance of opportunities for the healthy players.
Tennessee basketball opens its 2023-24 season on Nov. 6 against Tennessee Tech. Before that, the Vols face Michigan State in a charity exhibition on Oct. 29 and Lenoir-Rhyne in an exhibition on Oct. 31.
