Tennessee was not one of the better teams in the SEC last year with second-year coach Rick Barnes leading the way, but that is likely to change in year 3. He has some of his recruits on campus now and he's been able to implement his system. It also helps that he just landed a ridiculous scorer in the offseason thanks to a graduate transfer:
Daniel averaged 27.1 points a game in 2015-16 when he led the nation in scoring and was named the MEAC Player of the Year that season. He only appeared in two games last season though so he was unable to defend his crown. However, that's the kind of scoring Tennessee can use as the Volunteers were right in the middle of scoring teams at 74.5 points per game.