Tennessee basketball sits roughly three weeks out from tipping off the 2025-26 season.

Just four scholarship players remain from the program’s third-ever Elite Eight run, losing four-year staples Jahmai Mashack and Zakai Zeigler. With a new squad taking the court, boasting two players who recently arrived to campus, Rick Barnes enters his 11th season at the helm with a tough challenge.

As the Vols open the season with Mercer on Nov. 3, Barnes was addressed the media on the Vols’ in-house media day Thursday with what he likes about where the current team is at in progression.

“I think they have continued to work,” Barnes said. “We have, obviously, once we got into official practice, a lot more time in the film room, where I think they see day by day where we are behind, where we need to get ahead. And I do like the response for the most part as a staff. We like that they try to respond to some of those things.”

There is one thing that Barnes is eyeing on the court.

“We’re looking for consistency every day from everyone,” Barnes said. “But overall, I think the work ethic has been good. But we’ve got to just keep cleaning up the areas that we know we’ve got to clean up.”

And that consistency throughout the offseason has been seen throughout different players. He listed Maryland transfer Ja’Kobi Gillespie first, who will assume point guard duties. The senior guard, and Greeneville native, averaged 14.7 points and 4.8 assists per game while stroking an efficient 3-ball at a 40.7% stripe.

Barnes also alluded to second-year transfer Felix Okpara, who fits the defensive mold that Tennessee identifies in its recruits. The former Ohio State big man was a large presence as a 38-game starter a year ago, coming into his own as a rim protector during the latter half of the year with 14 multi-block games after conference play began. He could draw potential buzz as an SEC Defensive Player of the Year candidate.

As for newcomers, Barnes cannot avoid to mention prized freshman Nate Ament. He added Israeli guard Ethan Burg into the mix, despite being a handful of practices in after arriving on Sept. 8.

“Everyone has shown that they can do it,” Barnes said. “It’s just a matter of putting those back-to-back days together… But we just need more and more of it.”

Cohesion is always a point of emphasis in an offseason, but it was exasperated by the roster overhaul this time around. Tennessee brought in three transfers, signed four freshmen and dipped into the international talent pool for a pair of players to round out the roster.

It’s a process that is different from previous years. Barnes has had the luxury of four-year seniors on prior rosters, from Mashack and Zeigler, to Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi. But now his longest tenured player lies in the hands of talented spark man Cade Phillips, who enters year three on the squad.

It has been that leadership core of returnees that have laid the groundwork of what those four-year players left behind.

“Our older guys, I think, really do and have done a good job trying to explain to them and talk about what’s next, what we’re up against, and what we’ll be up against every night,” Barnes said.