The arguably promising young guard opts to continue his career elsewhere
Per On3’s Rob Lewis, Tennessee redshirt-freshman guard Freddie Dilione is entering his name into the transfer portal. He’s the first transfer portal loss for the Vols of the offseason so far.
Dilione was originally part of the ‘22 recruiting class, but shortly after signing with the Vols in November of 2022, it was announced that the consensus top-50 prospect and the No. 1-rated player in North Carolina would enroll in January of 2023 but take a redshirt year.
Despite being a highly-ranked prospect, the decision to enroll mid-year — like Santiago Vescovi did when he came to UT — came from Dilione and his family, and the redshirt piece of the puzzle was most likely agreed upon by all parties involved.
“Freddie decided he wanted to get here as early as he could,” Vols’ Head Coach Rick Barnes said, via On3’s report at the time. “We’ll get him here and we’ll get him, I don’t know how long it will really take him to get to practice with us, but we’ll get him going in school, get him going that way.”
After spending the second half of the 2022-2023 season with the team without the pressure of having to be immediately college ready, Dilione had a good summer leading into this past year. He had opportunities in Tennessee’s three-game exhibition trip overseas and in his time with the 2023 USA Basketball Men’s under-19 World Cup Team training camp. During the three-games in three-days stretch in Italy, he averaged 11 points and nearly 5.5 assists points per-game against Lithuania’s under-21 team, which the Vols played twice, and Stella Azzurra, an amateur Italian basketball squad from Rome.
At 6-5, 195, Dilione displayed an all-around game that indicated he might be able to play on or off the ball and give the Vols an option behind Zakai Zeigler at point guard. He shot the ball well from distance against the Lithuanian team, snaked his way through the defense, collected some rebounds and showed some play-making ability.
Only 35 players were invited to the U19 World Cup training camp, and Dilione made it through every cut until the final round, when he was one of two players trimmed off the team to get the roster to its 12-man number.
But Dilione just never found his stride this past year after the summer that looked promising. He suffered a partially-torn plantar fascia in Tennessee’s third game of the year on 11/14/23 and didn’t log minutes again until the Vols’ played George Mason on 12/5/23. So, most of his chance to find a groove when there was extra playing time available was taken away while Zakai Zeigler was still finding his footing after the ACL injury early in the year. Who knows what kind of impact that situation had on Dilione’s year.
Dilione wasn’t alone in his lack of playing time — for contextual purposes — as none of the younger guys in Cam Carr, D.J., Jefferson, Cade Phillips and JP Estrella Phillips logged more than 100 total minutes in the season, except for Estrella, who finished with 124 with a decent amount of those coming late in the year. Dilione played in the second-most games of the freshmen (18 to Estrella’s 25) and had the second-most total minutes with 93.
If one looks at the players’ per-40 minute numbers, which levels the playing field for guys who play a lot of minutes with guys who don’t, most of Dilione’s stats weren’t bad. He notched 12.9 points on 52 percent shooting, though his 3-point shot didn’t come along with a 29-percent figure from deep, six assists, and 4.3 rebounds. But he also turned the ball over six times per 40, which is bad, but he may just not be suited to be a primary ball handler.
He ended the season averaging just five minutes per-game during the contests in which he played, and that likely didn’t sit well with Dilione, especially after the redshirt that gave him a head start on his career. I don’t know the ins and outs of the situation, so if the decision came from Dilione’s side or the staff’s side is unknown, at least to me.
I hate to see a young guy with potential leave, no matter the circumstance, but in this era of college sports, these kind of things just happen and will continue to do so.
UT is now looking at four spots available on the roster, as Dilione joins seniors Santiago Vescovi, Josiah-Jordan James and Dalton Knecht as players who will not be on the team next year.