By CHRIS DORTCH
If it weren’t for two narrow defeats to Kentucky — games in which it had double-figure leads in the second half — Tennessee would be in the thick of the race for the Southeastern Conference championship. The Vols aren’t out of the equation, though, and still in contention for a top-four finish and double bye into the league tournament.
One of the reasons might surprise you.
Everyone knows how Ja’Kobi Gillispie has been a consistent offensive threat and how freshman Nate Ament has grown into his five-star billing, but an unsung hero in the Vols’ success has been 6-4 sophomore guard Bishop Boswell. Don’t be fooled by his modest 6.8 point scoring average. Boswell has become Tennessee’s glue guy and perhaps its toughest competitor. If that latter declaration could be proven, perhaps it would be by the number of time Boswell has been knocked to the floor, usually after a blow to the face.
You’ve heard the expressions, “He’s got a nose for the basketball,” or “He sticks his nose in there.” That’s literally true of Boswell, who’s an old-school battler and a better offensive player than he’s being given credit for. Or at least, given credit for by fans and the media. Opposing coaches now know Boswell is what former Tennessee coach Kevin O’Neill used to call a “no leave guy,” meaning if you don’t respect his 3-point shot, he’ll drain one on you. So far this season, Boswell has taken just 35 shots from behind the arc, but he’s made 18 of them. That’s a stellar 51.4%.
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes told me last June that Boswell would play a lot. I’ve known Barnes a long time and I believe him when he tells me something. Still, when Boswell began this season as a starter, I was a bit surprised.
I’m not surprised any more.
In fact, I texted Barnes after the Vols’ heartbreaking 74-71 loss at Kentucky on Saturday. “You want to know my big takeaway from the game?” I wrote. “It’s time for Boswell to take 10 shots a game.”
The next day, on the way back from visiting family, Barnes called and told me he agreed with my assessment of Boswell. “He does need to take more shots, and everyone in our program believes he can make them,” Barnes said.
I made my statement because two times in the second half, Boswell passed up shots he could have made. One was a midrange jumper. The other was a clear path to the rim for a layup, yet he passed the ball back to the perimeter. Tennessee didn’t cash in on either of those possessions.
But scoring doesn’t even begin to tell Boswell’s story. He’s inherited the Jahmai Mashack role of guarding the other team’s best perimeter player. He rebounds his position as well as any guard in Barnes’ Tennessee tenure, including Yves Pons, who was taller, heavier and a lot more bouncy than Boswell. Since the Vols’ double-overtime victory over Texas A&M on Jan. 13, he’s racked up two double-doubles—13 points and 11 boards against the Aggies and 13 points and 10 rebounds at Georgia. He also grabbed eight rebounds in three consecutive games, and in two of those games, he scored 10 points, too.
On Wednesday night, Boswell further demonstrated his versatility and value by handing out a career- and game-high eight assists, to go along with another seven rebounds and four points, as the Vols bagged a crucial win at Mississippi State.
Boswell, who played little as a freshman, has stepped up in a big way as a sophomore. He’s one of those program guys Barnes likes to keep on his roster—a four-year player who fits the culture, is loyal to the program and leads by example. He never gives less than full effort, despite sometimes having to shake off some cobwebs after getting clobbered in the skull.
Florida, which my staff and I picked as our preseason No. 1 in Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, had been dismissed a bit after a stretch in late November and early December in which the Gators lost three of four games. But two of those losses were to Duke and UConn, and the other was to TCU, which took down No. 5 Iowa State on Monday night. Since then, the Gators (18-6) have lost just twice—by a bucket at Missouri, and in perhaps one of the most unlikely outcomes in the SEC this season, at home to Auburn. At 9-2, they’re on top of the SEC standings by a game over Arkansas and Kentucky.
The national media is once again talking about Florida as a team that’s capable of repeating its 2025 national championship. One of the biggest reasons has been the play of 6-10, 265-pound junior Reuben Chinyelu. Entering the season, he might have been the least heralded of the Gator’s tall triumvirate of starting frontcourt players. Blue Ribbon picked 6-11 Alex Condon as one of its first-team preseason All-Americans, and 6-9 junior Thomas Haugh was recently chosen to the Wooden Award Late Midseason Top 20. He’s been sensational, racking up 10 20-point games after getting switched from power forward to small forward.
Haugh and Condon are Florida’s top two scorers, but Chinyelu has been a force, averaging a career-best 11.8 and 11.8 rebounds, tops in the SEC and fourth in the country. Chinyelu’s offensive rebound percentage, per KenPom.com, is No. 6 nationally (18.2), and his defensive rebound percentage is No. 1 (31.8). On Wednesday night at Georgia, Chinyelu racked up his third 20-rebound game of the season. He’s only the fourth player in school history with three or more games of 20-plus boards.
Florida’s rebounding—No. 2 nationally in offensive rebound percentage and No. 3 in defensive rebound percentage—is a big reason the Gators have overcome horrific 3-point shooting. At 28.8 percent, they’re 351st out of 365 Division I teams.
After its big win at Florida and another at home against Texas, Auburn, under new coach Steven Pearl, has hit the skids, losing three in a row. The latest, on Tuesday night, ended in surprising fashion, because Keyshawn Hall, a leading candidate for SEC Player of the Year and one of KenPom’s All-SEC team, sat on the bench the last 12 minutes.
Hall, who had been whistled for a technical foul earlier in the game, left when the Tigers were trailing by 12 points and was conspicuous by his absence as the game wound down.
“I just went with the guys I thought put us in the position to get back in the game,” Pearl said. “We ended up cutting it to four. That group did a good job of clawing and fighting. Vanderbilt did a really good job when [Hall] had the ball of plugging the paint. They made it really difficult for him. Our offense wasn’t in sync when he was on the floor. It was a coach’s decision [not to play Hall]. I wanted to go with the group that got us back into the game.”
Alabama center Charles Bediako’s return to college basketball was short lived. After just five games, Bediako, who after giving up his college eligibility and entering the NBA in 2023, was granted a temporary restraining order from the NCAA rules that clearly stated he was no longer eligible.
Suffice it to say that decision, made by a judge who is an Alabama booster, angered coaches around the SEC. Maybe it was the root of Florida coach Todd Golden’s bold proclamation that his team would beat Alabama at home on Feb. 1. He didn’t exactly go out on a limb there, but the Gators pounded the Crimson Tide, 100-77.
When the previous judge did the right thing and recused himself from presiding over Bediako’s appeal to play the rest of the season, there was a different result. The judge sided with the NCAA, bringing, for the moment at least, a bit of sanity back to what was formerly an amateur game.
“Common sense won a round today,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement on Monday. “The court saw this for what it is: an attempt by professionals to pivot back to college and crowd out the next generation of students. College sports are for students, not for people who already walked away to go pro and now want to hit the ‘undo’ button at the expense of a teenager’s dream. While we’re glad the court upheld the rules our members actually want, one win doesn’t fix the national mess of state laws. It’s time for Congress to stop watching from the sidelines and help us provide some actual stability.”