Nate Ament may be the highlight of the Tennessee Basketball 2025 recruiting class. He and Vols transfers Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Jaylen Carey and Amaree Abram are at the root of why fans may be excited for next year. However, hidden amongst the crop of newcomers are the perfect type of players for Rick Barnes: long-term development projects.
UT has picked up another such player in French combo guard Clarence Massamba. Unrated across most services, ON3 has Massamba as a three-star. At 6’5″ 185 pounds, Massamba hails from the AC Monaco’s Under 21 Professional B Team in France. He continues a tradition of Europeans playing for Barnes such as Yves Pons, Uros Plasvic and Olivier Nkamhoua.
Massamba joins a collection of commitments in the 2025 Tennessee Basketball recruiting class that fit the mold of Barnes as an elite developer. Troy Henderson, an unrated point guard, appears to be the next Zakai Zeigler. Four-star forward Amari Evans and three-star forward DeWayne Brown II are also in the class.
All four of those guys are the type of players who Barnes can typically turn into NBA prospects after three years of working with them. In Massamba’s case, he’s got solid length, is an elite defender and efficient from three, so he’s the perfect type of backcour player for Barnes to develop.
It also helps that Massamba has experience playing in America, as he spent two years at The Rock School in Gainesville, Fla., before joining AS Monaco. He averaged double figures with the Lions in Florida and shot above 40 percent from the three-point line, which provides a lot of promise.
Given the Vols’ roster this upcoming year, Massamba is unlikely to see a lot of action. Gillespie, Ament and Felix Okpara are locked in as starters. The other post spot will be a rotation of J.P. Estrella, Cade Phillips and Carey with the other two coming off the bench, and the two-guard spot will involve Abram and Bishop Boswell. That’s an eight-man rotation right there.
However, there’s room for an extra backcourt player, and Henderson and Massamba could be in competition to fill that void, as somebody has to manage the point when Gillespie goes to the bench, and nobody has the experience to do that right now. As a result, Massamba could be in the hunt.
At the same time, if he isn’t, he’s still a guy who is likely to blossom with Barnes’ coaching in the future. This is more evidence that Barnes isn’t going anywhere, as Tennessee Basketball has an extremely bright future now and could remain elite in the immediate future. Massamba could be elite when it’s all said and done.
