Rick Barnes says DeWayne Brown has 'earned' opportunity in Tennessee's rotation

DeWayne Brown didn’t waste any time. Tennessee Basketball’s freshman forward played just 13 minutes against Duke in the preseason exhibition game at Food City Center on October 26, but it was enough time to score 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting and enough time to grab six rebounds.

He picked up where he left off Monday night. In the season-opening 76-61 win over Mercer, Brown had six points — again he was a perfect from the field at 3-for-3 — with five rebounds in 16 minutes. 

“DeWayne came in,” redshirt sophomore forward JP Estrella said afterward, “he came in offensively (and did a) great job. Defensively, does a really good job. Does a really good job rebounding, too.”

But it’s nothing new and nothing out of the ordinary. 

“He shows it every day in practice,” Estrella said, “so I’m really not surprised that when it comes to game time, he does the exact same thing that he was doing in practice that he’s doing in the games.”

Up Next: No. 18 Tennessee vs. Northern Kentucky, Saturday, 3 p.m. ET, SEC Network+ 

Brown has looked like anything but a freshman in his first two games in a Tennessee uniform.

The 6-foot-8, 251-pound big man was a four-star prospect and the first commitment in Tennessee’s 2025 recruiting class way back in April 2024. 

He finished his prep career as the No. 96 overall player in his class. He was the No. 9 center in the country and the No. 1 player out of Hoover High School in Hoover, Ala.

Head coach Rick Barnes in October described him as the biggest surprise in Tennessee’s offseason workouts. 

“As a freshman coming in,” Barnes said at the time. “We weren’t exactly sure where — we knew we wanted DeWayne, no question about that, but we weren’t sure how long it would take him to grab ahold of it … there’s no doubt he’ll be a big part of our rotation with those five guys.”

‘They’re going to be in there because one, they’ve earned it’

Tennessee’s front court returned intact, with Estrella, Felix Okpara and Cade Phillips returning. Barnes went to the NCAA Transfer Portal to add Vanderbilt power forward Jaylen Carey to the mix. 

Barnes said Monday night that Brown, along with freshman guard Troy Henderson — he scored six points in 12 minutes off the bench against Mercer, going 2-for-3 from the 3-point line — will be sticking around in Tennessee’s rotation. 

“They’re going to be in there,” he said. “They’re going to be in there because one, they’ve earned it. And again, the more they play, the better they’re going to get.”