Next season will be Rick Barnes’ 12th at Tennessee. It also could feature his best team yet; it will certainly be his most expensive.
A big reason for that materialized on Monday when Barnes’ Volunteers got their latest and final significant commitment of this year’s portal cycle. Wake Forest transfer Juke Harris committed to Tennessee, giving Barnes one of 2026’s strongest portal classes. After Harris’ commitment, Tennessee has 247Sports’ No. 2 recruiting class in the cycle, trailing only Louisville.
Harris will head to Knoxville after spending the past two seasons playing for Steve Forbes and the Demon Deacons. The Salisbury, North Carolina, native is coming off a season with averages of 21.4 points and 6.5 rebounds in 35.2 minutes per game. Harris, who also seriously considered the likes of North Carolina, Michigan and Louisville, ranks No. 8 in our tracker of the best portal players of 2026.
Harris’ agent commanded a $5 million asking price, sources told CBS Sports, making him one of the most expensive players in the sport. He boosts an already lavish roster. With Harris on board, Tennessee is projected to spend north of $15 million on players for the 2026-27 season, putting the Volunteers among the biggest buyers in college basketball.
UT is undergoing an unusual mass personnel flip despite having a veteran coach. The Vols have ironically taken on a high rate of turnover after winning 25 games and reaching the Elite Eight for a third consecutive year, this time as a 6-seed. Barnes will turn 72 in July; the clock is ticking for him to make the second Final Four of his 40-year career. (Texas in 2003 being his only trip.)
Now he has perhaps his most hyped team in his 12 seasons with the Volunteers, a school that has famously never made the Final Four. Will next season’s roster be the one that ends the Final Four hex? Harris’ commitment could be the key ingredient that gives Tennessee top-five potential.
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Rick Barnes going all in for a Final Four run
Few teams will represent the transient nature of college basketball in the mid-2020s like next season’s Volunteers squad, although it’s key to note that Tennessee’s two best players from last season are no longer in college basketball. Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s eligibility expired and Nate Ament is a one-and-doner due to being a projected top-15 pick. Elsewhere, JP Estrella transferred out to Michigan, Bishop Boswell went to Maryland, Jaylen Carey went to Missouri, Cade Phillips sought a new path at Texas A&M and Amari Evans took to Texas.
My immediate takeaway on Harris’ commitment: Tennessee should have one of the best scoring teams in the country. That will pair with a program that has ranked fifth on average in defensive efficiency in the past six seasons, per KenPom. Barnes has managed a level of defensive consistency only one other team can match across all six years: Houston.
For all the reliability Barnes and his staff have brought with elite defensive scheming, only once in the past 18 years has Barnes coached a top-10 offense. This group should be among the best in the sport at both ends of the floor. Tennessee not only comfortably projects as a top-10 team overall, it could have top-five credentials in short order in the first few weeks of the season. Harris, who plays the 3, will be the starter at small forward. The Vols figure to go at least nine deep if they can stay healthy. The other big adds — in addition to a key returnee DeWayne Brown — are point guard Dai Dai Ames (16.9 ppg at California), center Miles Rubin (11.3 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 2.3 bpg at Loyola Chicago), shooting guard Jalen Haralson (16.2 ppg at Notre Dame) and combo guard Terrence Hill Jr. (15.0 ppg at VCU).
This team will be loaded with bucket-getters.
UT also signed Kennesaw State power forward Braedan Lue (10.9 ppg), who should be a key frontcourt piece. The Vols will have the luxury of bringing one of the best 3-pointer snipers in the sport off the bench: Tyler Lundblade (15.6 ppg) is a career 43.2% shooter from beyond the arc and was a key player for a Belmont team that went 26-6. Plus, there’s also inbound four-star guys Christopher Washington Jr., Ralph Scott and Manny Green.
Barnes has averaged 26.8 wins the past five seasons and brought a level of longterm relevancy that Tennessee’s seldom had prior. The Vols have a couple of SEC championships and an average KenPom finish of eighth in that span.
This has been one of the seven or eight best programs in the past half-decade, broadly speaking.
It’s unquestionably been the best program to not have a No. 1 seed or Final Four appearance the past 8-10 years. Maybe this will finally be the team to break through. At 72 years old, Barnes clearly craves one last big run to cap off a tremendous career. So take one more massive swing, spend big and see if you can repeat the model that just led to a national championship. Keep in mind, Michigan just won it all with five players in the starting lineup who were transfers. We’ll see next season if Tennessee can turn a model into a proven contemporary concept.
