Prominent quarterback sees a lot of Vols, with Tennessee among the “best teams”
On Saturday, one of the best quarterbacks in the country for the 2026 class returned to Tennessee to attend the Vols’ inaugural junior day of play.
Faizon Brandon earned a scholarship offer from Tennessee in June with a strong showing at one of the Vols’ camps, and he attended three of their home games during the fall. His regular visits to Tennessee have helped the Vols catch his attention in the early stages of his recruitment, and they impressed him again this weekend.
The four-star Class of 2026 quarterback from Grimsley High School in Greensboro, N.C., was back at Tennessee on Saturday for its first junior day of the year. It was his fifth visit with the Vols in less than eight months, and while the list of programs in the running for him has continued to grow, he said Tennessee is “definitely one of the top teams on my list right now” following his latest trip to Knoxville.
Well, that was pretty darn awesome. Saturday’s jam-packed slate with three top-10 wars more than lived up to the hype. No. 3 North Carolina outlasted No. 7 Duke. No. 5 Tennessee went into Rupp Arena and sent No. 10 Kentucky packing. Eighth-ranked Kansas showed why it should never be a home underdog. It worked Houston for two hours and two minutes.
The three headliner games were fantastic, but Texas-TCU, Iowa State-Baylor and UConn-St. John’s were all elite in their own right. Indiana State star Robbie Avila came to play in a barnburner against Drake, and the Great Osobor-Jaedon LeDee brawl lived up to the hype.
Saturday was great. Sunday has another top-10 war on tap with Purdue and Wisconsin tangling for the top slot in the Big Ten.
Johnny Furphy’s 17 points and eight rebounds earned him Star of the Game from ESPN, but he wasn’t the best player on the floor.
That was KJ Adams Jr.
The do-it-all forward was tremendous in KU’s 78-65 throttling of Houston. Adams had 10 points, four rebounds, seven assists, one block, one steal and four turnovers in 36 minutes. What a performance. Two of the four turnovers weren’t even that bad. Both were open. Both would’ve been buckets. Hunter Dickinson would’ve had a dunk if he didn’t turn away at the last second to get in position for an offensive rebound and Parker Braun doesn’t have bunnies like his brother, or it would’ve been another dunk. Adams had seven dimes, but he could’ve had 10.
Adams’ sharp decision-making softened up Houston’s pressure, and when they tried to switch ball-screens, Adams pinned Emanuel Sharp on his hip and took him for a ride. Houston was constantly adjusting to KU which is far from the norm.
Adams was a huge reason why.
On a day when Jamal Shead is missing wide-open layups and Damian Dunn is stapled to the bench for defensive sins, Houston really could’ve used maybe its second-best pro prospect on the roster.
Houston kept chugging after Terrance Arceneaux’s season-ending injury in mid-December, but make no mistake, the Cougars will miss him. They desperately needed someone like him against Kansas when it was searching for literally anything in the first half.
Houston will be fine. A bunch more wins are on the horizon, and no one will be surprised if Home Houston puts KU in a torture chamber in the last game of the regular season. But Arceneaux was supposed to help Houston reach another level. Without him, the ceiling is slightly different.
