Everybody’s Talkin’ Bout The New Kids In Town
UT hoops, both men and women, feature rosters filled with fresh new faces.
Last season Rick Barnes’ Vols made it to the NCAA tournament Elite Eight for the third straight time, ending up 25-12 and ranked No. 12. But in the brave new world of the transfer portal and NIL, Barnes has new names in the starting lineup.
In this chaotic swirl, Barnes usually comes out a winner, because of his reputation for teaching the kind of hard-nosed defense and team play that prepares players for the NBA. So this time around Barnes opened up the portal and came up with a guard-oriented lineup led by junior point guard Terrence Hill Jr., a Virginia Commonwealth transfer originally from Portland, Oregon. T-Hill will be spelled at PG by senior Dai Dai (pronounced Day Day) Ames, a Chicago native who played a year each at Kansas State, Virginia, and Cal. Dai Dai started every game last year for Cal, averaging 16.9 points per game, 37.6% on threes, and 85% on free throws.
At shooting guard, sixth-year senior Tyler Lundblade, a Dallas native, played at SMU, TCU, and Belmont, where he started every game, led the country with a 93.4% on his free throws, 43% from the field, and 40.6% on threes. Lundblade is getting master’s in communication, specializing in strategic and digital communication. He had back surgery in August but is expected to return in time for the season, when Barnes will encourage him to strategically shoot.
Junior Jalen “Juke” Harris, started and played most of every game for Wake Forest last year and averaged 22.9 points. His mother gave him his nickname at birth, when she said he “juked his way out,” arriving two weeks early in an easy delivery.
Sophomore guard Jalen Haralson, a McDonald’s All-American, averaged 16.2 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists at Notre Dame last year, shooting 51.5% from the field.
Miles Rubin, a 6’10” senior Loyola Chicago transfer who went to middle school in Chicago with Dai Dai Ames, will post up at center in the guard-oriented lineup. In his Loyola career, Rubin averaged 2.3 blocks per game and shot 64.7% from the field, topped by 71.4% his sophomore year. He’ll share time with 6’8” sophomore DeWayne Cortez “Tez” Brown II, a team leader who last year he led or co-led the Vols in blocks six times and in rebounding three times, and shot 58.6% from the floor. His mom, April Dickerson, is director of family life at a Ronald McDonald House near Children’s Hospital of Alabama in Birmingham, where Tez has volunteered. They’ll get help from 6’9” junior Braedan Lue, a tough, Rick Barnes-type defender who led Kennesaw (Ga.) State in rebounding and blocks last year.
The fact is that this is what Barnes has shown himself to be uniquely capable of doing—recasting a team and giving them a real chance to make it to the Elite Eight for a fourth straight time.
The names have change but the expecations haven’t!
A Team that Wants to Play Caldwell’s Way
After the Lady Vols’ worst season in program history—going 16-14, losing their last eight games in a row, including a 76-61 drubbing to NC State in the NCAA Tournament first round—the entire roster departed. When Athletics Director David White elected to give Head Coach Kim Caldwell another year, she opened up the transfer portal and assembled a new roster of 14 transfers, plus incoming freshman Gabby Minus, a 6’1” wing from Dacula, Georgia. So, all 15 players are new additions who have surely come to Rocky Top wanting and expecting to play Caldwell’s aggressive, fast-paced brand of basketball.
Caldwell, 38, was hired three years ago from Division II Marshall, where she won by relentlessly pressing and trapping opposing teams, fast-breaking, and shooting threes then switching entire lineups like hockey units when her players got winded from the exertion. This worked at times in her first year with the Lady Vols, coming close to knocking off top team like Texas and beating UConn in a game that shook up the Huskies enough to compel them to re-focus enough to win the national title. But some of Caldwell’s the better trappers, pressers, and shooters were five senior players left over from previous coach Kellie Harper, now at Missouri. When those veterans’ eligibility was up, things seemed to fall apart. At moments last year a frustrated Caldwell castigated the team publicly for giving up and not playing hard, which did not go over well.
But this year’s lineup has been selected for their feisty aggressiveness, and they in turn have chosen the Lady Vols for the opportunity to play that way. The only way to play Caldwell’s game is to play Caldwell’s game. You press and press and press some more, wear yourself out in a short span then get subbed and catch your breath on the bench.
It takes a certain type of player to make it work, as we will see in the coming months as we get to know players like 5’9” junior guard Naomi White, from Omaha, Nebraska, a Northern Arizona transfer who was the 2026 Big Sky Freshman of the Year, averaging 20.8 points a game with a 36.5 percentage on three-pointers. From an Air Force family, she was born in Cambridge, England, and has dual citizenship.
Senior forward Fatmata Janneh, a 6’2” transfer from Texas A&M, was born in London, England, and attended Barking Abbey School before playing two years at St. Peters and her junior year at A&M, where her 9.7 rebounds a game ranked her fifth in the SEC.
Fifth-year senior Kaylene “K.K.” Smikle, a 6-foot guard from Bay Shore, New York, played two years at Rutgers and two at Maryland, averaging 17.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.7 steals. Another fifth-year senior, 5’7” guard Kennedy Fauntleroy, from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, played a year each at Georgetown, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, and East Carolina, where she made 86 steals and 153 assists.
Sixth-year senior forward Aaliyah Moore was a McDonald’s All-American from Moore, Oklahoma. She played four years at Texas then sat out last year recovering from surgery.
Caldwell will count on long-distance scoring from junior Avery Mills, a 5’9” guard from Lynchburg, Virginia, who shot 43.8% on her three-pointers at Liberty, as well as senior forward Riley Makalusky, from Fishers, Indiana, who hit 43.2% of her threes for West Virginia. For sparking those fast breaks, look for sophomore Zhen Craft, from Waldorf, Maryland, who had 26 assists, 17 blocks, and 12 steals for Georgia.
They will lead the Lady Vols in buying in to the philosophy and coming up with surprising upsets throughout the season.
