Where Tennessee Vols basketball falls in early 2022-23 rankings
The 2021-22 college basketball season came to an end on Monday night with the Kansas Jayhawks' 72-69 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels in the National Championship game. That means it's time to immediately look ahead to the 2022-23 season. And that's exactly what 247Sports did after the championship game by revealing their "top […]
The 2021-22 college basketball season came to an end on Monday night with the Kansas Jayhawks' 72-69 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels in the National Championship game.
That means it's time to immediately look ahead to the 2022-23 season. And that's exactly what 247Sports did after the championship game by revealing their "top 23" for next season.
247Sports has the Arkansas Razorbacks starting next season at No. 1 and the Kentucky Wildcats at No. 2. They have the Tennessee Vols starting next season as the No. 11 team in the country.
Kennedy Chandler is likely moving on, but there’s a ton to like about a backcourt that features Zakai Zeigler and Santiago Vescovi (who is testing the waters, but should return). Josiah-Jordan James will also be back to do the dirty work, and the Volunteers’ second and third most-used lineups down the stretch included some combination of Jordan-James, Uros Plavsic and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield at the four/five spots.
This is probably a fair ranking — especially since star freshman guard Kennedy Chandler is almost certainly heading to the NBA (though maybe Tennessee can convince him to stick around for another year with a rich NIL deal).
The Vols, though, will have their core group of talent back in 2022-23. And they have four-star guard BJ Edwards who will be in Knoxville this fall.
Tennessee should once again be one of the top 10 teams in the nation next season. Maybe 2022-23 will be the year that Rick Barnes finally breaks through in the NCAA Tournament and makes a Final Four run with the Vols.
Featured image via Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports
