Tennessee Basketball to host Ohio State in closed-door scrimmage

Tennessee Basketball will host Ohio State in a closed-door scrimmage in Knoxville on October 18, giving the Vols two outside opponents on the preseason schedule. Rick Barnes mentioned the scrimmage with the Buckeyes during his appearance on The Mike Keith Show on Thursday.

Tennessee will host Duke in a sold-out exhibition game at Food City Center on October 26, before opening the regular-season schedule on November 3 against Mercer in Knoxville. The Vols were also in discussions to play an exhibition game at Michigan on October 19, before talks fell apart.

Barnes reiterated during his appearance on The Mike Keith Show that he believes college basketball teams should play multiple preseason exhibition games. 

“We’re going to do a closed-scrimmage with Ohio State,” Barnes said, “which we’ll get some things out of it, but it won’t be the same. I wish we really could play four or five of those exhibition games. I think one, I think it would cut down on injuries, I do, if we’d get out and play. 

“I think it’d make the year even better. And I think in some ways, keep that pressure because coaches in practice normally go at it pretty good.”

Tennessee hosted Michigan State in closed scrimmage in 2022

Earlier in the Barnes era, the Vols held multiple closed-door scrimmages with Davidson, both at home and on the road. Tennessee also had a closed scrimmage with Michigan State in October 2022, before facing the Spartans in an exhibition game in East Lansing in October 2023.

Tennessee lost 66-62 to Indiana in a preseason exhibition last October at Food City Center and beat Gonzaga 89-88 in a charity exhibition in Frisco, Texas, in 2022.

The Vols are 8-8 all time against Duke, dating back to a game in Durham in 1911. Tennessee won the last meeting 65-52 in Orlando in the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. 

“I’m excited about (the Duke exhibition), obviously, for a lot of different reasons,” Barnes said. “But going forward, I hope we can do it every year. We were supposed to go to Michigan and at the end they canceled the game. But it’s going to be good. And again, I appreciate (Duke) coming here. We’ll both get a lot out of it.”

The closed Ohio State scrimmage will be the first chance for Barnes and his staff to see their new-look Tennessee roster on the floor against an outside opponent. 

Vols have nine players on new-look 2025-26 roster

The Vols have nine new players on roster, with five-star freshman Nate Ament and Maryland transfer point guard Ja’Kobi Gillepsie headlining a group that will attempt to replace the likes of Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack, Jordan Gainey and Chaz Lanier.

“I know without a doubt we’ve got a group of guys that not only do what we ask them to do,” Barnes said, “but a lot of these guys are self-motivated, come back at night. They want to spend some time working on some of the small things that they like to do. And it’s a fun group. 

“Every day I get up, I tell you, I look forward to seeing them. And that would be the day I think I would know I would no longer want to coach, if you had a group of guys that you just didn’t want to be around. This group has been a fun group.”