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<\/p>\nLAS VEGAS \u2014 Bishop Boswell wanted to play.<\/p>\n
Duh. Of course he did. What top 100 national recruit doesn\u2019t?<\/p>\n
But when Boswell arrived at Tennessee in the summer of 2024, as the Volunteers\u2019 lone high school recruit in his class, it didn\u2019t take him long to read the room. Tennessee already had five senior perimeter players \u2014 none more important than Zakai Zeigler, the reigning SEC Defensive Player of the Year \u2014 and expectations of another deep NCAA Tournament run. The obvious mental math spit out an uncomfortable answer: a likely year of benchwarming.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mindset last year was, if the roles were reversed, I\u2019d want them to cheer me on and not have a bad attitude,\u201d Boswell said. \u201cSo just last year, supported the team any way I could.\u201d<\/p>\n
That meant plenty of sideline excitement\u2026 and very little on-court impact. Boswell played only 106 total minutes \u2014 never more than 11 in one game \u2014 and made a whopping three baskets across 28 appearances. Still, Rick Barnes\u2019 senior backcourt was as good as expected \u2014 good enough, for the fifth straight season, to lead Tennessee to a top 5 national finish in adjusted defensive efficiency.<\/p>\n
But in the Elite 8, Tennessee ran into a defense as steadfast and sturdy as its own: Houston\u2019s. And so for the second straight season, the Volunteers fell a game shy of Barnes\u2019 second career Final Four.<\/p>\n
Not only that, but the second the final whistle blew against Houston, whoosh. All five seniors, gone, instantly. Barnes sat down with Boswell, his only returning guard, not long thereafter, and made his pitch.<\/p>\n
Come back. Take over for Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack. Be our defensive stopper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo doubt it\u2019s a hard role for a player to buy into and want to do it,\u201d Barnes said, \u201cbut he\u2019s all about team. He wants to win more than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight months later, after weeks of discourse that the Vols hadn\u2019t played anyone yet, their first substantial opponent in the Players Era Festival was\u2026 No. 3 Houston. Boswell didn\u2019t even play a minute in the Elite 8, but entering Tuesday\u2019s headline affair, the 6-foot-4 sophomore admittedly couldn\u2019t help but think back to the spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defensive players we had last year, we didn\u2019t get the job done,\u201d Boswell told The Athletic, from a carpeted back hallway inside MGM Grand Garden Arena. \u201cIt\u2019s my job this year to try and get that job done \u2014 and we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least it did on Tuesday, when No. 17 Tennessee outlasted Houston 76-73 for its defining win of the nonconference schedule. It\u2019s the type of result that instantly validates Barnes\u2019 team as not just an SEC contender, but quite possibly something more. In some ways, the Vols even out-Houstoned Houston, highlighted by a seven-minute second-half run in which Tennessee held the Cougars to a single point, while rattling off 10 of its own.<\/p>\n
And the key to that stretch, the decisive sequence to the game?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kid that should be mentioned,\u201d Sampson said, \u201cthough not a lot of people will remember his impact, but it was Bishop Boswell. He impacted that game. No idea what his future holds in this game, but that kid is a winner. He was the toughest guy on the floor tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Tennessee is clearly more than just a second-year guard who scored in double figures Tuesday for the first time in his career. Backcourt mate Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespie, a Maryland transfer, scored a team-high 22 and made six straight free throws down the stretch to keep Houston at bay. Top-five recruit Nate Ament, averaging 19 points and a team-high 7.2 rebounds coming in, struggled with foul trouble, but still made a flying tip-in in the final minutes to extend Tennessee\u2019s cushion. That\u2019s to say nothing of Barnes\u2019 four-headed beast of a frontcourt, which combined for 32 points and 17 rebounds.<\/p>\n
But for all that talent, and the totality of Tennessee\u2019s potential, the difference against another Final Four contender was undoubtedly Boswell.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery coach in America,\u201d Sampson continued, \u201cwould love to have Boswell.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Bishop Boswell slowed down Houston\u2019s leading scorer, Kingston Flemings, in the second half. (Stephen R. Sylvanie \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
That was especially true after the second-half shutdown Boswell orchestrated on Houston freshman Kingston Flemings, who torched Tennessee\u2019s defense for a career-high 25 points. Flemings\u2019 pick-and-roll mastery gave the Vols fits all night, until Boswell\u2019s body turned into a stone wall and stopped letting him get straight to the cup. Per Synergy, Flemings made three of his six shots when Boswell was his primary defender and seven of his nine when guarded by anyone else.<\/p>\n
Not perfect by any means, but against a projected one-and-done guard who had NBA scouts in attendance drooling over his dynamism? Better than anyone else on Tennessee\u2019s vaunted defense, and plenty good enough to throw the Cougs out of their offensive flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter who\u2019s in front of me, my job for this team \u2026 is to play as hard as I can, be a dog, and get a stop,\u201d Boswell told The Athletic. \u201cThat\u2019s the whole game I\u2019m thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
And for Tennessee to reach its season-long potential, it\u2019ll need Boswell to continue thriving in that role.<\/p>\n
The Vols were picked to finish third in the SEC in the preseason, behind Florida \u2014 the reigning national champions \u2014 and Kentucky, but given both those teams\u2019 inconsistency thus far, it\u2019s absolutely feasible that Tennessee emerges as the league\u2019s best team. Gillespie and Ament, who account for 42.8 percent of the Vols\u2019 scoring, are a key piece of that equation\u2026 but let\u2019s be real.<\/p>\n
This is Tennessee. Rick Barnes.<\/p>\n
The Vols will go where their defense does.<\/p>\n
And while there\u2019s no discounting Barnes\u2019 frontline \u2014 which has four de facto starters between J.P. Estrella, Cade Phillips, Felix Okpara and Jaylen Carey \u2014 his best teams in Knoxville have thrived because of their perimeter pressure, and preventing teams from getting the cozy shots they want to. It\u2019s no accident that over the last three seasons, when Tennessee has made two Elite 8s and a Sweet 16, it\u2019s held opponents under 31.2 percent from 3 \u2014 and twice under 29 percent, a top-five mark nationally. That sort of perimeter hassling makes for tougher drives, easier rim protection for the bigs in the back, and completes the puzzle that is Barnes\u2019 defense.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also exactly what Boswell provides, and what made the difference against an opponent the Vols could very easily see again come March.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s becoming one of the best defensive guards in the country,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cWe need him to keep that focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wherever Tennessee goes this season, it undoubtedly will be in large part because of its headliners. Ament, the glitzy NBA prospect. Gillespie, the seasoned veteran. This big, and that big, and the collection of them altogether.<\/p>\n
But the unspoken key to Tennessee\u2019s defense \u2014 to the Vols\u2019 Final Four hopes, really \u2014 may have finally shown himself on a national stage Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
So much for under the radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to have a guy that plays that role,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cIn some ways, it might be the most important role on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Bishop Boswell wanted to play. Duh. Of course he did. What top 100 national recruit…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":405889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4345,2500,1385,1383,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-405888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-cougars","10":"tag-mens-college-basketball","11":"tag-tennessee-volunteers","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115615850390901660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}