Three members of the University of Tennessee men's basketball team collected All-SEC plaudits from the league's head coaches, as announced Monday afternoon by the conference office.
Ja'Kobi Gillespie garnered First Team All-SEC status, while Nate Ament picked up Second Team All-SEC and SEC All-Freshman Team honors. Additionally, Felix Okpara received SEC All-Defensive Team plaudits.
Tennessee and Florida were the only schools with a first- and second-team selection, as Gillespie and Ament joined the Gators' duo of Thomas Haugh (first) and Rueben Chinyelu (second).
This is the fifth year in a row the Volunteers have a First Team All-SEC performer on the coaches' list, as Gillespie follows Santiago Vescovi (2022, 2023), Dalton Knecht (2024) and Zakai Zeigler (2024, 2025). This is also the fifth consecutive season Tennessee has multiple first- and/or second-team designees.
Ament is the seventh Volunteer to tally SEC All-Freshman Team designation under head coach Rick Barnes, including the first since Julian Phillips in 2022-23. Okpara gives Tennessee an SEC All-Defensive Team choice for the seventh season in a row, a stretch that dates to 2019-20, while no other school has even a two-year streak.
Gillespie finished the regular season averaging 18.0 points, 5.6 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 2.1 steals in 34.3 minutes per game. He is second in the league in assists, steals and minutes average, fourth in 3-point makes per game (2.74), seventh in scoring average and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.44), and No. 11 in free-throw percentage (81.8). In league-only action, he paced the conference in steals (2.7) and minutes (36.5) per game.
A senior guard in his first campaign at Tennessee, Gillespie is the lone Volunteer to start every game this season. He scored in double figures in 29 of 31 contests, with 20-plus in 12 and 32-plus in two. Gillespie also owns 20 outings with five-plus assists, including six with at least eight, as well as 18 multiple-steal performances.Gillespie recorded two of the only three eight-steal showings by an SEC competitor this season, setting and then tying the Tennessee single-game record, as well as becoming the first player in league history to hit that mark multiple times in league play.
Ament produced 17.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.0 steal per game during the regular season, placing No. 10 in the league in scoring, No. 10 in defensive rebounding (4.7) and No. 15 in total rebounding. He was even better in SEC play, putting up 19.0 points per game to rank ninth in the league, while shooting 36.8 percent from 3-point range and 80.2 percent at the line.
The 6-foot-10, 207-pound forward became the fourth freshman in the last 20 seasons (2006-26) to score 28-plus points four times in SEC play. Those four outings came during a 10-game stretch from Jan. 13 to Feb. 18 amidst which he averaged 23.4 points per game, while shooting 45.2 percent overall, 38.1 percent from deep and 84.4 percent at the line.
Okpara excelled defensively once again for the Volunteers, serving as the anchor for a team that allowed just 69.42 points per game during the regular season, the best mark in the conference. Tennessee conceded 75-plus points just twice—one was in an overtime affair—across its last 13 conference outings.The 6-foot-11, 243-pounder averaged 1.4 blocks per game in the regular season, while also routinely switching on to guards and wings to defend on the perimeter. He blocked multiple shots in 12 contests, with three-plus in six and four in three. Five of his six appearances with at least a trio of blocks came against Power Five competition. He owns 105 blocks in his two years at Tennessee, good for No. 20 in program history.