Tennessee Basketball Forward Jaylen Carey Entering Transfer Portal

Tennessee junior forward Jaylen Carey announced his intentions to put his name in the transfer portal.

Tennessee forward Jaylen Carey (23) erupts in celebration after scoring against Iowa State in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 at the United Center in Chicago on March 27, 2026. | Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The next 48 hours are going to be crucial for the Tennessee Volunteers’ next basketball season with the transfer portal opening.

Tennessee has already lost JP Estrella, Cade Phillips, Bishop Boswell, and Clarence Massamba.

Currently, Tennessee has Amari Evans, Dewayne Brown, Gavin Paull, Campbell Duncan, Troy Henderson, Ethan Burg, and Nate Ament (Ament has not declared for the NBA Draft as of the time of publication).

This comes after the Volunteers lost a fifth player to the portal in Jaylen Carey.

Carey has already played at three different schools in three years. He started his career at James Madison and averaged 7.4 points per game.

He then transferred to Vanderbilt, where he averaged 8.0 points per game and 5.7 rebounds per game. He had three double-doubles that season, including a 14 points, 10 rebounds game against Tennessee.

After the season, he decided to hit the portal again, where he ended up at Tennessee.

He averaged 7.0 points per game this past season and added 6.0 rebounds per game. He also had 11 steals last season.

He notched a season high of 22 points against Syracuse. Another great performance came a few days after the Syracuse game when Tennessee played Kansas, and Carey had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds in the victory.

Carey started the first game of the season against Mercer, but did not start again until the Kentucky loss on January 17th. There was a stretch of six SEC games that he started from February 18th to March 7th, but in total, he only started those eight games.

He only played in six minutes of Tennessee’s first-round win over Miami (Ohio) and played a tournament high for himself of 21 minutes against Iowa State.

What’s next for Tennessee

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes speaks with the referee during a NCAA basketball game between Tennessee and Alabama at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tenn., on Feb. 28, 2026. | Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Carey has a difficult role to fill. He was never the tallest player on the court, but with his muscle mass, he could play down low.

Losing him and JP Estrella hurt Tennessee as they were the Volunteers' two big “enforcers” down low.

A guy who could replace him is Kansas’s Bryson Tiller. Tiller played on the City Reapers in high school as a part of the Overtime Elite Academy, where he played with current Tennessee guard Amari Evans. He started 31 games last season for the Jayhawks and averaged 7.9 points per game along with 6.1 rebounds per game.

To read more about other players that Tennessee could target in the portal, click here.