Freddie Dilione, DJ Jefferson find new schools in the transfer portal

A new home for the former top prospect.

A couple of transfers from Tennessee found new homes on Wednesday. Both Freddie Dilione and DJ Jefferson announced their decisions, with each moving on in hopes of finding more playing time.

First up, Dilione committed to Penn State. The former four-star recruit chose the Nittany Lions on Wednesday after also receiving interest from NC State.

Dilione hit the transfer portal directly after Tennessee’s season wrapped up. He was expected to carve out some sort of role on last year’s team, but that never happened. The most we saw Dilione play was overseas during the summer months, where he filled in for Zakai Zeigler during a few scrimmages.

Outside of a few spurts of random minutes here and there, Dilione never settled into the rotation. There was a point in time where Dilione had some NBA chatter to him, but now he’s just simply looking for minutes to prove himself.

Next up, DJ Jefferson committed to Longwood. Jefferson, another former four-star prospect, was even further down the depth chart than Dilione. The plan was for Jefferson to wait his turn in Knoxville, but in the transfer portal era, that’s becoming less and less possible.

Jefferson was a top 100 prospect during his recruiting cycle due to his athleticism. Unfortunately for Tennessee fans, that athleticism was only on display during the ‘One Fly We All Fly’ dunk routine every game to wrap-up shootaround sessions.

Jefferson moves on to join Longwood, which is coming off of another NCAA Tournament appearance this season.

Tennessee has filled one of these open spots so far on the roster, landing Hofstra wing Darlinstone Dubar. They’ll likely quickly fill the other openings with a few more transfers. The Volunteers are in hot pursuit of Charlotte forward Igor Milicic, Ohio State center Felix Okpara, Belmont wing Cade Tyson and now (potentially) North Florida guard Chaz Lanier.