The 2019-20 Tennessee basketball team is going to bear very little resemblance to the squad that Rick Barnes guided to 31 wins and two NCAA tournament victories a year ago. The Vols lost four productive, multi-year starters off that team, including three guys who heard their names called in last week’s NBA Draft.

It goes without saying that replacing what two-time SEC Player of the Year Grant Williams provided on the floor, along with All-SEC level performers Jordan Bone and Admiral Schofield and defensive stalwart Kyle Alexander, will be a challenge in and of itself.

Behind the scenes though, the Vols are also losing some of steadiest leadership that has come through the Tennessee program in decades.

Williams and Schofield, in particular, were strong personalities who embodied what the culture of the Tennessee program has become under Rick Barnes. The duo were living, breathing examples of what hard work can do for you, turning themselves from fringe high major prospects into NBA Draft picks in their time under Barnes.

They were also the kind of teammates that weren’t afraid to hold their peers accountable, willing to pull someone aside if they were dogging it in practice or quick with a word over a blown in-game assignment like a missed box out or failing to call out a defensive switch.

Tennessee will miss their numbers, but they’ll also miss having two players of that ability who were largely responsible for the Vols turning into a peer led team, the kind of guys who echoed the head coach’s message even when no coaches were around.

Into that void steps fifth-year senior Lamonte Turner, a young man ready to take the reins and someone who sounds like he’s ready for it. Turner was part of Barnes’ first signing class in Knoxville, arriving with Schofield, Alexander and two guys who didn’t make it, Ray Kasongo and Shembari Phillips.

As the last man standing from that original class, Turner been through it all during his four years. He’s witnessed the Vols' climb from the cellar of the SEC to the No. 1 ranking in the country. He’s seen Tennessee go from a team that couldn’t crack .500 in the SEC to a team that won 57 games in the last two years.

Along the way he’s turned himself into the kind of respected locker room voice that a team like Tennessee, one that’s bringing in four freshmen and two transfers, needs in the worst way.

He’s finding out that the role suits him.

“I love being in this role. I feel like it fits, I’m very comfortable. I think that’s what you dream about for your senior year. We’ve got young guys that work hard, they want to be good, they just need you to tell them how to do it. They’re young but they’re the right kind of people for this program, they want to learn and they’re willing to work,” Turner said.

“It feels a lot different right now than just three months ago. I felt like I helped share the leadership role last year, but we had other guys who would step up. Now if I don’t say anything then nothing might get said at all. We’ve got a lot of young guys that don’t know what’s going on, what our culture is about, what the expectations are here. I’m just trying to be that voice to the team so that the coaches don’t have explain everything.

“It’s important that I’m an example for the young guys. It’s been a fun experience so far. We’re just getting started but I’ve already been able to see that I’m a big influence on these guys. I can see that they’re watching my every move. They’re watching how I speak to the coaches, how I relate to the coaches. That’s big for young kids just coming in.”

As one of only two seniors on the team, along with Jordan Bowden, it was critical that Turner was ready to step up this offseason and assume that mantle of leadership.

Rick Barnes is fond of saying that when you have a ‘player led team,’ that’s when you have a chance to build something special. This past season was proof of that, a culmination of a project that was four years in the making. It was a season that was pieced together by a special group of players that Barnes helped mold from a group with virtually no expectations into one of the most entertaining and successful teams in Tennessee history.

That team is gone.

There’s a different feel around the program this summer. Not only are four crucial pieces gone from the roster, so is associate head coach Rob Lanier, who left Knoxville to take the head coaching job at Georgia State this spring.

With so many new faces and so few veterans, Turner is shouldering a big load, and according to one of the toughest taskmasters around, he’s handling it beautifully.

“He’s been tremendous stepping into that leadership role. Maybe as well as anybody we’ve had since I’ve been here. He really started as soon as the season was over,” Barnes said.

“His leadership, the way he’s talking to these guys, helping them, right now, like I said, it’s the best we’ve had since I’ve been here.”

Turner’s burden is made heavier by the fact that his fellow senior Bowden is one of the most easygoing guys you’re going to find in any sport. That’s not to say that he’s not a hard worker and a tough nosed competitor, because he is. Bowden is everything you could ask for in a teammate, or someone who is going to lead by example when it comes to practice, putting in work in the weight room or getting in the gym on your own time to hone your skills.

He’s just not the type of guy you’re typically going to see get in a teammates face when needed, or step up and call attention to a mistake in practice. However, Turner is increasingly comfortable in that role, just as both Williams and Schofield were.

“I recognized early on that it was kind of going to be up to me to take on that leadership role. Me and Coach Barnes actually had a long talk about it back in the spring. He just came out and said that this was going to be my team and I was going to have to be the leader of it. I kind of embraced it right from the start,” Turner said.

“Jordan (Bowden) is as good of a teammate as anyone could ever want, and he’ll lead by example, but he’s a quieter guy. He’ll do anything you ask of him, and he helps me out a lot, but that’s just not his personality to get after someone where it is mine, I feel like I have a dominant personality and it just fits my style. It’s perfect because we have a good one-two type punch when it comes to being leaders.

“As a senior, this is what you expect in a situation with some younger guys. They’re really good, we’ve got some talented freshman that can play but they’re going to need somebody to lead them.”

Leadership is a phrase that gets tossed around pretty liberally in athletics, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a vital part of any winning program regardless of sport. It also goes far beyond setting the tone in practice or in the weight room, especially at a place like Tennessee where the culture Barnes has built has been an integral part of the Vols’ successful rebuilding effort.

That Turner understands that has been evident in the way he’s gone about his business this offseason. While rehabbing from shoulder surgery, he’s not really had the option to set the tone on the floor. That hasn’t stopped him from setting it off the floor though.

He’s taken the newcomers under his wing and has gone to great lengths to familiarize them with the standards and the expectations that not only the coaches have, but that the players themselves have for one another.

The kind of maturity he displays in detailing the process says a great deal about the kind of person he’s developed into over four years, someone you could easily see segueing into coaching once his playing days are over.

“I think a big part of my job is letting those freshman know about our culture, about how big of a part of our program it is. When they first got here I talked to them about just how you carry yourself matters, people are always watching you. It’s important to put the work in everyday, it’s important to be respectful, say ‘yes sir, no sir.’ Don’t put your head down. Have a good attitude, have positive body language.’ I talk to them about all that stuff and I know that they watch me,” he said.

“It’s a learning experience. They’re not going to learn it all in one day but I can tell that they’re paying attention and that they want to do things the right way.”

One big part of Turner’s job is to act as a buffer between the freshmen and a head coach who has a take-no-prisoners style in practice. Barnes isn’t insulting or degrading and he never uses profanity. But he’s absolutely maniacal in his attention to detail, calling guys out routinely for mistakes, constantly holding them accountable and quick to banish someone to running steps for repeated mistakes.

His approach can take some getting used to, something Turner knows as well as anyone having now been through four years with Barnes, including that redshirt freshman season when he got coached as hard as anyone on the team despite the fact that he wasn’t playing.

“It takes awhile to get used to him, that’s for sure. It probably took me almost two years. My first year he’d get so mad at me in practice and then once practice was over he’d come over and be joking around, and by that point I didn’t want to joke with him. I would be thinking, ‘after the way you just did me you want to come over and joke with me? I don’t think so,’” Turner recalled with a smile.

“I’m sure the freshmen are all going through that now, they’ll come into the locker room like, ‘man, Coach is crazy.’ I just laugh and say, ‘I tried to tell you all. When you’re on a visit you’re going to get off-the-court coach, but on the court he’s always going to bring it and get after you.’”

Barnes has completely transformed his current roster both through recruiting and the transfer route. They’ll look different and they’ll play differently than they did a year ago.

Turner’s presence means that one thing won’t be different. This team will have strong leadership, it will have a tone setter and it will have someone who knows and cares about the culture that Barnes has built here and has the skills and the willingness to pass that knowledge down to the next generation of Vols.

(Part 2 from of our lengthy sit-down with Turner coming later this week)