The Tennessee Volunteers are putting together one of the strongest transfer portal classes in college basketball this year. Now, Tennessee could be on the verge of greatly improving its high school recruiting class by coming out on top of a battle against the Duke Blue Devils and Kentucky Wildcats.
247 Sports‘ five-star recruit Nate Ament is rated as the fourth-best player in the nation. The power forward out of Virginia is fielding strong interest from the likes of Duke, Kentucky and the Arkansas Razorbacks. However, a new front-runner has emerged.
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Nearing his big decision, 247 Sports has flipped its prediction with Tennessee projected to emerge victorious in the recruiting battle for Ament. It would be a massive coup for a 2025 recruiting class that enters the weekend ranked 41st in 247 Sports team rankings, with a pair of four-star signees in guard Amari Evans and center DeWayne Brown.
- Nate Ament stats (junior): 19.3 PPG< 7.9 RPG, 4.0 BPG, 3.7 APG
The 6-foot-9 power forward could be shying away from Duke with the Blue Devils already having landed a signed letter of intent from Cameron Boozer, the highest-ranked power forward in the 2025 recruiting class. Of note, AMent would be more of a long-term play for a Volunteers’ basketball program that has relied on veteran players it develops and mult-year starters from the transfer portal.
“Ament is one of the best long-term prospects in the country. He’s an immense talent and still in the early stages of putting it all together. He has good positional size for a face-up forward at over 6-foot-9 with an elastic body type, albeit a relatively modest 6-foot-11 wingspan. He’s a fluid mover, plus athlete, and has tremendous natural hands and touch, which are the foundation of his developing skill-set.”
247 Sports’ Adam Finkelstein on Nate Ament
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Ament named his top-five programs in February, with Arkansas believed to be leading the field at the time. He also visited the program in March and many thought he was trending toward joining John Calipari’s program until this week.
The Highland High School star would be one of the highest-rated recruits to ever commit to the Volunteers basketball program, joining the likes of Tobias Harris, Kennedy Chandler and Scotty Hopson. While it’s rare for Tennessee men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes to go heavily after five-star talents, the program seems all-in on trying to bring Ament to Knoxville.
