Tennessee basketball freshman predicted to transfer to Louisville
We’re halfway through the spring transfer portal window and Tennessee’s first transfer has been predicted to join the Louisville Cardinals.
This spring, Tennessee basketball has lost a few players to the transfer portal. The portal window closes on April 30, meaning that Rick Barnes and the Vols will have less than two weeks to assemble the club that will play basketball in the upcoming campaign.
On April 4, five days after Tennessee’s Elite Eight loss to Purdue, freshman combo guard Freddie Dilione V made his transfer portal debut. After redshirting his first season, he spent two seasons on Rocky Top but did not get the amount of playing time he had anticipated this past season.
Dilione is rated as a four-star transfer prospect by 247Sports and the On3 transfer portal. He would be a fantastic guard to add to any club that wants to rebuild and find someone who can start in the fall.
The latter is the exact situation Dilione could be heading to if On3’s prediction of where he will commit is correct. Jamie Shaw of On3, the platform’s national recruiting analyst, has projected that Dilione will sign with the Cardinals in Louisville.
After two terrible seasons under Kenny Payne, who finished 12-52 in his two years as the Cardinals head coach, Louisville is seeking to turn things around. As part of his plan to rebuild the Louisville Cardinals roster, new Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey may choose to bring in Dilione as a transfer.
About the Tennessee transfer, “Dilione is in the mist of evolving from a volume scoring wing into a more legitimate big guard,” according to Adam Finkelstein of 247Sports. “He has the size and power to play and eventually defend all three perimeter positions at 6-foot-5 with a nearly completely developed and naturally strong build.
“He usually plays his best individual offense in the open floor or coming off ball screens, when he can use his strength and stature to create mismatches and make plays. Although he doesn’t have any obvious technical flaws in his shot, he has a history of being a streaky shooter, sometimes hunting for open opportunities and settling for contested ones.”
It’s not a foregone conclusion that Shaw would wind up in Louisville—his confidence level in the prediction is 60 out of 100—but it would be a significant pickup for Kelsey just a few weeks after she was hired. Dilione might be a weapon for Louisville the next season because of his strong offensive upside.
