Tennessee may have stumbled through its two public tune-ups, but the Vols apparently finished the preseason with a better feel in a closed-door setting.
According to On3 insider Chris Low on Sunday night’s episode of The RTI Low-Down, Tennessee beat Davidson in a private scrimmage Saturday in Knoxville. The biggest development from that game was Tyler Lundblade finally taking the floor after missing the earlier exhibitions against Xavier and Duke because of injury.
Low said Lundblade made an immediate impact in his first action for Tennessee.
“They had a closed scrimmage against Davidson on Saturday and they got Tyler Lundblade back, the shooter from Belmont,” Low said. “And he made a big difference at the game.
I think he had 24 points in about 20-some minutes. Tennessee looks different with him on the floor.
The floor looks different, because you can’t leave him. He’s a shooter.”
Lundblade’s return matters because Tennessee has spent much of the offseason waiting on him to get right physically. He dealt with a back injury, underwent surgery in September, and worked his way back gradually through the preseason. The progression moved from individual work to smaller team settings and eventually to five-on-five action before Saturday’s scrimmage.
Before the Duke game, Rick Barnes laid out where Lundblade stood in the recovery process.
“Yeah, he’s getting back,” Barnes said about Lundblade before the Duke game. “I mean, if you guys watch practice, he’s out there with us, but he’s on a timetable where the doctors wanna make sure he’s slowly building back into it.”
Barnes also pointed to what Lundblade brings beyond shooting. In his view, experience is part of the value Tennessee is getting back.
“Yeah,” Barnes said when asked if he likes what he’s seen from Lundblade on the court during the preseason. “But like anybody who misses that much, first of all, he did a phenomenal job keeping his conditioning up, especially with the back problem that he had.
He’s smart, he’s experienced. And that’s what he and Jalen (Washington) would bring us more than anything, just the fact that they’ve played college basketball.
They know what it’s about. And some of these guys are, obviously, the young guys haven’t, and some of these guys haven’t played at the level that we know that we’ve gotta play at.”
The numbers Low shared would make Lundblade Tennessee’s top scorer in the preseason so far. He said Lundblade had 24 points, topping Terrence Hill’s 22 against Xavier and Dai Dai Ames’ 19 against Duke.
Low also noted that Davidson did not face the full Tennessee roster. Juke Harris sat out with what Low described as minor back spasms, and Jalen Washington remains uncertain.
“I’ll add this, too: they beat Davidson,” Low said on The RTI Low-Down. “I don’t think it was a blowout.
I think it was single-digit type game. And Juke Harris didn’t play in the game, so he’s clearly going to be a big part of this team.
I think he had some minor back spasms or something. So they did win.
They trade Lundblade in for Juke, so they still really haven’t had, I’m sort of thinking, they still really haven’t had their whole team on the floor yet. Jalen Washington’s still a question mark.
So, if everything goes well, and I don’t know if they’re going to get (Washington) back or not, but I will be interested to see what they look like when they get everybody back on the court together. Because that’s when it counts.”
Lundblade’s production at Belmont last season shows why Tennessee went after him. He averaged 15.6 points per game while shooting 43% from the field and 40.6% from three, adding 2.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game. He is in his fourth season of college basketball after two years at TCU and two at Belmont before transferring to Tennessee.
Tennessee opens the 2026-2027 regular season on Nov. 3 against Wofford in the Food City Center.
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