Back to the Tennessee Volunteers Newsfeed

John Fulkerson’s rise is just the latest Rick Barnes success story

As people, we tend to appreciate underdog stories. They make us feel good. They reinforce the notion that, as a species, humans are resilient and have the capacity to... rebound... from some event of ill-fated luck or hapless happening. We root for these unfortunate cases, maybe trying to reinforce some idea that regardless of the circumstance, the person or persons affected can work hard and overcome.

Tennessee’s 2016 recruiting class consisted of nothing but 3-star players, according to 247Sports. And a few of those guys, I think, qualify for this sort of underdog narrative. Grant Williams and Jordan Bone both came to Tennessee in that 2016 class — under-recruited or overlooked for whatever reason — and both were selected in the 2019 NBA Draft.