Roster building a challenge for Tennessee, and everyone, in the transfer portal era

Roster building may be the single most important task facing any college head coach. And my goodness, hasn’t that chore changed in recent years. Tennessee, and every other program in college basketball, is dealing with the ramifications of the NCAA transfer portal, which have made April maybe the craziest month of the year.

In the not so recent past, roster building—especially at Tennessee—consisted of stacking one solid recruiting class on top of another, developing the players you recruited, leaning hard on the veterans that you developed, sprinkling in the occasional talented freshmen and adding a transfer to the mix every once in a while.

No longer.

A college coach can’t ignore high school recruiting, but April has become the most crucial recruiting month on the calendar in college basketball, and it has absolutely nothing to do with high school prospects.

Not so long ago after the NCAA coaches’ meetings at the Final Four, April was a pretty chill month for college basketball coaches.

Programs might have hosted a few high school stragglers who were signing late, maybe as a result of a coaching change. Maybe there would be a fifth-year transfer in for a visit, but for the most part, April was a time to decompress after a long season.

Not anymore. Now the opposite is true.

If you make you’re living as a college basketball coach, April is no longer about unwinding a little, maybe reconnecting with the wife and kids and trying to rediscover your golf swing.

Now as soon as your season is over—actually before it’s over if you’re dancing—you better be be ready to hit the recruiting trail at full speed or you’re going to fall behind.

“It’s so much different than it was five years ago. Because right now, this month is probably the most hectic, busiest month that we go through now because of where we are with the game,” Rick Barnes said of how drastically things have changed in recent years.

“With the portal and everything, we literally have not stopped from what we normally do. And because it’s where we are right now in this phase of basketball. And you’ve always had to be able to adjust for as long as I’ve been in this.”

Give Barnes credit. He’s one of the most veteran coaches in the college game, but he’s adjusted to the new reality.

Tennessee landed (what turned out to be) the most impactful transfer in the country last cycle in Dalton Knecht. Barnes and the Vols have already snagged Hofstra transfer Darlinstone Dubar this month and they’re firmly in the mix for Cade Tyson and Igor Milicic, two other coveted transfers.

It’s definitely been an adjustment for Barnes, but the transfer portal and NIL haven’t chased him from the game like it (seemingly) did some other guys from his generation of coaches like Roy Williams and Jay Wright.

Barnes keeps plugging away, but roster management is a completely different job today.

Barnes and his staff built this Tennessee program on developmental players. Guys like Kyle Alexander, John Fulkerson, Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams were just some of the pieces of Tennessee’s earliest recruiting classes under Barnes.

All of those guys developed and blossomed into highly successful college players who were parts of some of the best basketball teams in Tennessee history.

Is that kind of thing even possible today?

Does a Kyle Alexander stick it out after struggling to get playing time as a freshman or sophomore? Does a John Fulkerson decide that coming off the bench as a sophomore isn’t something he wants to do, even for the home state school?

Does someone like Admiral Schofield decide he’d like to see what life might be like if he’s Batman somewhere instead of Robin to Williams at Tennessee?

Who knows, but it doesn’t matter because if Barnes arrived in Knoxville today he wouldn’t even try to build his roster with guys like that. He’d be chasing transfers, veterans who want immediate playing time.

Barnes will be the first to tell you that it’s a different era in college basketball. It would be fair to say that with the advent of the portal, it’s ‘adapt or die,’ and Barnes has shown the ability to adapt.

“As much as you would like to get the continuity and the consistency and help guys grow and get where they want to go, if they choose to go elsewhere, all it does is it’s like graduation, it opens up the door for somebody else,” Barnes said of how he chooses to view this climate of accelerated player movement.

“That’s what makes college basketball great, because every year you see players go out, players come in. And that’s why March Madness is always a big thing because it seems like every year, for the most part, there’s new guys that step up on the platform and have a chance to shine.

“The sad part of the whole portal is there’s a lot of guys that will go into it will end up with nothing. That’s the sad part. But the fact is where we are, and I think schools at our level, you’re going to be able to put together a good team and then see what you can do with it.”

For the most part Tennessee hasn’t really been rocked by portal losses until this spring. Big men Jonas Aidoo and Tobe Awaka both announced last week that they were entering the portal, putting a major dent in the Vols’ post depth for 2024-25 to put it mildly.

Losing that duo (assuming Awaka doesn’t return) will really be the first example of the Vols taking a hit in losing guys who were major contributors.

Their departures also highlight the challenge that coaches face in not just building a roster, but maintaining it. It’s not hyperbole to say that college coaches literally have to constantly recruit their own players.

I mean consider, Aidoo was just named a first-team All-SEC center for an Elite Eight team, but he apparently feels like he can find a better spot. Read that sentence again.

Nothing highlights what college coaches are dealing with more than a guy who was an all-conference player for a top-five basketball team deciding that the grass must be greener somewhere else.

Ironically, had Aidoo announced his decision first Awka might never have entered the portal, as his move seemed to be entirely motivated by playing time.

But now that Awaka is in the portal, he apparently wants to look around a bit. Barnes has left the door open of Awaka to return, but the head coach very clearly isn’t idly sitting back awaiting a decision from the rising junior big man.

“We respected Tobe a lot and we still do. But oftentimes we’ve had guys tell us that after they had left they’ve made mistakes. And sometimes in a rush in the moment people can listen to people and realize that maybe they maybe should have waited and thought it all out a bit more,” Barnes said, not so cryptically perhaps revealing what he thought about Awaka’s initial decision to enter the portal.

“But Tobe obviously, you know, we all respect him and love him for what he did for us. But if he feels he’s got to go through the process, he needs to do it. But with that said, we’re not waiting, because we’re going to move forward and build this roster as quickly as we can.”

Prior to last season and hitting the lottery with Dalton Knecht the portal had been a bit of a mixed bag for Tennessee and Barnes.

Barnes has always aggressively pursued transfers since that became a thing, but the ‘Dalton Knecht-experience’ seems like it might have made the head coach even more enthusiastic about adding significant pieces through the portal.

What Knecht just did at Tennessee, coupled with the Vols’ success on the court, has also probably made Tennessee a more attractive landing spot for a transfer looking to showcase himself.

“Putting the parts together is, honestly, it’s fun. It really is,” Barnes said (a quote I never thought I’d hear from him a few years ago).

“This is a great opportunity for a lot of people. And I can tell you our phone rings off the hook because people want to be a part of this.”

The portal has totally transformed the month of April in the college basketball world, and the action for Tennessee is probably just getting started.

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