{"id":13984,"date":"2025-05-06T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T18:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13984\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T18:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T18:35:09","slug":"tennessee-drops-four-spots-in-espns-way-too-early-top-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13984\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee drops four spots in ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Top 25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennessee Basketball<\/a> dropped four spots to No. 20 in ESPN\u2019s latest Way-Too-Early Top 25<\/a> for the 2025-26 season. The Vols made their debut at No. 23 a month ago, moved up to No. 16 after adding five-star wing Nate Ament<\/a>, then dropped to No. 20 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s projected starting five for Tennessee is Ament surrounded by transfer point guard Ja\u2019Kaboi Gillespie<\/a>, transfer guard Amaree Abram<\/a>, transfer power forward Jaylen Carey<\/a> and center Felix Okpara<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTennessee has been busy reloading the roster over the past month,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Jeff Borzello wrote, \u201cwith top-five recruit\u00a0Nate Ament<\/a>\u00a0and Maryland transfer\u00a0Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespie<\/a>\u00a0representing two of the most impactful newcomers for any team in the country. Ament has incredible long-term upside, while Gillespie was among the best point guards in college basketball this past season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Purdue is ESPN\u2019s offseason No. 1 team, followed by UConn, St. John\u2019s, Houston and BYU. From there it\u2019s Duke, Louisville, Texas Tech, Michigan and Arkansas in the top 10. Other teams ranked ahead of Tennessee are No. 11 Kentucky, No. 12 Arizona, No. 13 Iowa State, No. 14 UCLA, No. 15 Auburn and No. 16 Wisconsin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Rick Barnes has front court depth \u2026 the Vols need more, though\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cRick Barnes<\/a> has strong frontcourt depth,\u201d Borzello wrote, \u201cwith\u00a0Jaylen Carey<\/a>\u00a0(Vanderbilt) joining starter\u00a0Felix Okpara<\/a>\u00a0and reserves\u00a0Cade Phillips<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0JP Estrella<\/a>. The Vols need more, though, with starters\u00a0Zakai Zeigler<\/a>,\u00a0Chaz Lanier<\/a>,\u00a0Jahmai Mashack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Igor Milicic Jr.<\/a>\u00a0and reserves\u00a0Jordan Gainey<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Darlinstone Dubar<\/a>\u00a0all gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ament committed to Tennessee on April 20 and signed with the Vols a day later. He finished as the No. 2 overall player in the On3 ratings and is the highest-ranked prospect to sign with Tennessee during the recruiting rankings era.<\/p>\n

Ament became the fourth prep signee in Tennessee\u2019s 2025 class, joining four-star shooting guard Amari Evans, four-star center Dewayne Brown<\/a> and three-star point guard Troy Henderson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Vols added three players from the NCAA Transfer Portal, with Abram, the former Louisiana Tech guard, following Gillespie and Carey.<\/p>\n

Nate Ament signs with Tennessee as consensus top-five player<\/p>\n

Ament is a consensus top-five prospect, ranked No. 3 overall by On3 and No. 4 in the On3 Industry Ranking, which combines rankings from On3, 247, ESPN and Rivals.\u00a0He\u2019s the No. 2 small forward in the class, ranked only behind AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall player in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c(Ament) brings a dynamic skill set to the hardwood, embodying the attributes of a modern basketball player,\u201d Barnes said in a press release announcing Ament\u2019s signing. \u201cStanding out with next-level positional size, he possesses the rare combination of the ability to dribble, pass and shoot with confidence and precision.<\/p>\n

\u201cNate has a strong basketball IQ to go along with an excellent pairing of skill and toughness. He\u2019s the kind of versatile talent who can impact the game in a variety of ways and, in our eyes, he was the No. 1 player in the class. We are thrilled to have him in orange.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennessee Basketball dropped four spots to No. 20 in ESPN\u2019s latest Way-Too-Early Top 25 for the 2025-26 season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,195],"class_list":{"0":"post-13984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-regwall"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114462335563290466","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}