Inside the Tennessee basketball locker room, tears flowed.
The Vols came up short in the Elite Eight for the second-straight season, but this time, Tennessee’s veteran core stood at the end of the road. The emotional embraces in the bowels of Lucas Oil Stadium featured Vols’ greats Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack, a pair of four-year stalwarts who helped propel their program to its highest national prominence.
Sophomore Cade Phillips joined in on the hugs with fellow teammates who helped him learn the ropes of college basketball. By the time his eyes dried, a new reality started to set in.
“We had our end-of-the-year meetings the day after the last game last year,” Phillips told The Daily Beacon. “I go to that meeting, and I’ve been the young guy playing on the first two teams I’ve been here, and then all of a sudden I go into my meeting and they say, ‘Hey Cade, we need to be a leader. You’re the most tenured player on the team.’”
The Jacksonville, Alabama, product already experienced a boost in his role during his second season, a campaign that saw him appear in each of Tennessee’s 38 games. Phillips’ increased opportunity came under negative circumstances when J.P. Estrella’s season ended prematurely after just three games due to a foot injury.
Phillips jumped at the chance to get more reps, often appearing as head coach Rick Barnes’ first choice off the bench. The 6-foot-9 forward’s defensive prowess did the talking on most nights, his length allowing him to defend the rim to the tune of the second-most blocks on the team.
Now, his role in a new group is a new focus.
“It was kind of like a surreal moment,” Phillips said. “I’ve been the young guy. I’ve been the guy looking up these people and then all of a sudden, within literally 24 hours, it’s, ‘you’re the guy that’s been here the longest.”
He enters his third season under Barnes, now a veteran on a contingent that features nine new players. A class of five freshmen is highlighted by a former blue-chip recruit in Nate Ament. Phillips gets to be part of the leadership group that helps foster the highest-rated freshman in program history, especially when it comes to playing for a demanding coach.
“If you’ve been to a coach Barnes practice, you know he gets it a lot from him,” Ament said. “So you know he’s been through the fire. He played a lot last year, and he kind of knows how to succeed at this level. So maybe it’d be dumb to not listen to him.”
Learning how to play for a Barnes-coached team is an adjustment for every newcomer. One of Phillips’ larger roles concerns getting the new arrivals settled into the workload and demonstrating the expectations of the level of play required to compete for a national title in the SEC. This notion is something even a veteran like Ja’Kobi Gillespie needed some guidance with.
“He and J.P. have both done a great job just showing us the ropes,” Gillespie said. “Showing us how things are done here, how hard we should work here. Because a lot of guys haven’t worked this hard before coming here, so for them to just kind of set the standard here has been really good.”
Even though he now gets to face him every day in practice, Vanderbilt transfer Jaylen Carey possesses the unique perspective of squaring off with Phillips in true game action. The pair met two separate times last season when the Vols and Commodores renewed their rivalry.
Carey enjoyed fine outings against Tennessee in both instances, posting a double-double on 14 points and 10 rebounds in January. The forward racked up 18 points the second time around. Phillips only played 16 combined minutes between the two matchups, but generated respect from his former rival.
“Since playing him last year, I’m starting to see why he is what he is,” Carey said. “His defense is elite, plays it at a high level. And his offensive game is really something that I watch a lot.”
Phillips’ longer tenured teammates continue to notice vast improvements in his ability to score the rock. He averaged 4.6 points per game last season, a number the Vols would be okay with once again with the arrival of some other proficient scorers in Gillespie and Ament. That doesn’t mean the work to become a better offensive weapon is absent.
Phillips takes pride in being a two-way guy, one of the main reasons he fits into Barnes’ system. All the 221-pound Link Academy product wants to do is be the most well-equipped version of himself for Tennessee’s brand of basketball. His offseason work displayed this sentiment.
“Being more versatile,” Phillips said. “Just being as versatile as I can, whether that’s offensively or defensively, and it’s really just filling where I’m needed on this team. Whether that’s being able to score the ball more, whether that’s being able to take up a little bit more of a Jahmai role, the way he did it was incredible, but guarding the ball, just all over the place, has been the focus.”
Not many players around the country know what it’s like to play in consecutive seasons in the Elite Eight. Coming so close to program history, just one game from punching a ticket to Tennessee’s first trip to the Final Four in back-to-back seasons stings more than anything else in Phillips’ mind. He’s focused on replacing those premature season-ending hugs with something much more joyous.
“I think this is one of the most talented teams I’ve been on since being here,” Phillips said. “That’s something to say with the teams I’ve been on. It’s extremely talented teams that have been here. From top to bottom, we just got a group of guys that can go. It’s been cool to see and watch guys grow in that part.”
