While football season in just two days away, it won’t be too long before Tennessee basketball hits the court for its season opener in early November,
After a short break to end the summer, Tennessee’s entire team is back on campus and team practices resumed this week. The entirety of Thursday’s practice was open to the media including roughly 20 minutes of a five-on-five scrimmage. I’ll include a score from the scrimmage and some scoring stats at the bottom but there’s plenty more to get to before that.
Let’s talk about the trio of sophomores on this roster. JP Estrella did not go through any team portions of practice as he continues to heal from a bone bruise on his left foot. His absence meant more opportunities for power forward Cade Phillips who I’ve been sneakily impressed with through two practices.
Phillips isn’t going to become an offensive force or anything but he has the makings of a do-it-all, scrappy player that can earn a consistent role off the bench. His shot also looks much better and he hit an elbow triple in the five-on-five portion of practice.
The final sophomore on the roster, Cam Carr, earned Rick Barnes vitriol more than any other player during Thursday’s practice. Barnes was on the talented sophomore throughout practice including sending him to the versa climber.
Carr makes some plays that just make your jaw drop. In one drill, Tennessee players played one-on-one starting roughly 12-15 feet from the basket. Carr and Zakai Zeigler went up against one another in the drill and Zeigler understandably to play very physical with Carr. On one rep, the lanky sophomore wing took one dribble right, spun left off of Zeigler and threw down a tomahawk dunk.
The 6-foot-5 wing made a handful of nice finishes at the basket throughout practice but also wasn’t super consistent and had a couple bad turnovers. Carr has the ability to take over games. Consistency will be the key word for him this season.
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Chaz Lanier matched up with Jahmai Mashack in the previously mentioned drill and I was impressed with how the North Florida transfer performed. Lanier has a high and quick release which allowed him to get off contested shots over Mashack. I still have questions about how much Lanier can create off the bounce against elite athletes like Mashack but his ability to hit contested shots was evident.
On the other end of the court, the big men did the same drills. With Estrella out, Igor Milicic, Felix Okpara, Darlinstone Dubar and Phillips were the four doing the drill.
It was fun to watch Milicic battle with Okpara. Scoring on the rim against Okpara has been nearly impossible for Tennessee players I’ve watched. But in a one-on-one setting, Milicic’s shooting allowed him to draw Okpara out further from the rim which, in turn, allowed him to attack the basket.
The big men switched opponents about halfway through the drill with Milicic matching up with Dubar and Phillips matching up with Okpara.
Dubar is the easiest of the transfers to miss when they’re out there playing five-on-five. He hasn’t showed much urgency to create shots off the dribble from what I’ve seen in two practices. Granted, a very small sample size. The Hofstra transfer’s shot does look good. He came to Tennessee with an odd looking jumper that he started near his left hip. The shot still starts lower but in the middle of his body. It looks much smoother now than it did watching his highlights from a season ago.
On to the scrimmage portion of practice. Now Tennessee did change teams around so I don’t know how much to buy into this, but the first team (orange) to start was Zakai Zeigler, Jordan Gainey, Jahmai Mashack, Igor Milicic and Felix Okpara. That’s a change from the last practice we watched when Chaz Lanier was the starting two-guard over Gainey.
The orange team jumped out to a 4-3 lead and Rick Barnes decided to mix up teams. With the grey struggling to create offense, Zakai Zeigler moved to the grey team while Cam Carr moved to the orange team. At this point, Gainey’s day was done and he watched from the sideline with ice wrapped around his right knee. I never saw Gainey suffer an injury so I imagine that was purely precautionary for the final bit of practice.
With Zeigler on the grey team, the scrimmage flipped. The grey ended up going on a run and won the five-on-five portion of practice 30-19. That score was 27-15 after the teams changed. Zeigler fueled the run and was talking trash throughout the short stint of practice.
Milicic carried the orange team on offense once Zeigler moved to the grey team. Unlike the last practice we watched, walk-ons were working their way into the lineup and scrimmaging throughout the period.
Five-On-Five Scoring
Grey Team
Zakai Zeigler — 8 points
Chaz Lanier — 8 points
Cade Phillips — 7 points
Bishop Boswell — 3 points
Darlinstone Dubar — 3 points
*I’m one point off somewhere. They may have given Phillips another point for an and-one at one point.
Orange Team
Igor Milcic — 11 points
Felix Okpara — 4 points
Jahmai Mashack — 2 points
Cam Carr — 2 points
