{"id":184237,"date":"2025-07-20T22:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T22:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/184237\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T22:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T22:29:14","slug":"troy-henderson-has-fuel-while-starting-career-with-tennessee-vols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/184237\/","title":{"rendered":"Troy Henderson has ‘fuel’ while starting career with Tennessee Vols"},"content":{"rendered":"

Troy Henderson<\/a> knows the parallels. An undersized, under-recruited three-star point guard picking up an offer from Tennessee Basketball<\/a> late in the process, quickly committing to and signing with the Vols and enrolling in Knoxville.<\/p>\n

It was the whirlwind path that Zakai Zeigler<\/a> took in 2021. It was the same path that Henderson took in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was on my visit here, I actually got to speak with him,\u201d Henderson said of Zeigler on Monday, \u201cand just, he\u2019s giving me good feedback on like what to expect coming in as a freshman, because he did the same thing coming as a freshman and playing under a senior guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zeigler actually joined Tennessee recruiting class in 2021 that already included five-star freshman point guard Kennedy Chandler<\/a>, the assumed starter.<\/p>\n

Now Henderson comes to Tennessee after the Vols had already added Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespi<\/a> out of the NCAA Transfer Portal, one of the biggest names available in the spring and the player tasked with replacing Zeigler at point guard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c(Zeigler) was giving me good feedback on that,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

Troy Henderson \u2018ready to compete\u2019 at Tennessee<\/p>\n

And then there is the on-court comparisons for the 6-foot-1, 180-pound Henderson and the 5-foot-9, 172-pound Zeigler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we got definitely similar games as far as our mindset,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cWe\u2019re coming in as smaller guards. I thought (our) mentality was the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henderson finished his prep career as the No. 259 overall player in the 2025 class. He was ranked No. 36 at point guard and No. 13 overall in the state of Virginia, out of John Marshall High School.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very under-recruited coming out of high school,\u201d Henderson said, \u201cso yeah, I feel like I use that as fuel to make a name for myself every day. Come in ready to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vols added Troy Henderson after release from Fordham signing<\/p>\n

Henderson had signed with Fordham last November, but was released from his National Letter of Intent after head coach Keith Urgo<\/a> was fired in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the next day,\u201d Henderson said, \u201cit was just like Tennessee reached out. So it was just a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it was time to get to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also like, I gotta get ready, get prepared,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though you run every mile during the summer and you can work out how many times you want, but I feel like there\u2019s nothing you can do to prepare for Tennessee basketball practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s on the floor with his new teammates, he has found more similarities at point guard, where he\u2019s working alongside Gillespie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we feed off each other because we both can make plays for others,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cAnd when we have the ball in our hands, we\u2019re just so effective getting downhill, getting to the paint. And I feel like the way we just set others. I feel like it\u2019s very special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Troy Henderson knows the parallels. An undersized, under-recruited three-star point guard picking up an offer from Tennessee Basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,195],"class_list":{"0":"post-184237","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\/114887928291496169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184237","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=184237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}