A native of Celina, Tennessee, Key was the state’s 2017 Class A Mr. Basketball
Graduate transfer guard Tyreke Key, a Tennessee native who played four seasons at Indiana State, has signed an institutional aid agreement with Tennessee and will spend his final season of eligibility as a Vol during the 2022-23 season.
“We are all very excited about adding Tyreke to our team,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “He’s proven himself as a highly effective player in a strong basketball conference. He really fits everything we look for in our program. He’s a great teammate and has an outstanding work ethic that should allow for a smooth transition into what we do every day.”
From 2017-21, Key started 97 of his 114 games played with Indiana State. In the four years he was healthy, the 6-3, 205-pound guard averaged 17.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 47.2 percent from the field. Key also shot an impressive .374 from 3-point range during his career as a Sycamore.
Key was the Missouri Valley Conference’s second-leading scorer in 2020-21 (17.2 ppg), third-leading scorer in 2019-20 (15.6 ppg) and he led the entire league in 2018-19 (17.4 ppg).
In six career games against high-major opponents, Key averages 13.0 points.
After electing to play a fifth season at Indiana State in 2021-22, Key was forced to miss the entirety of the season following shoulder surgery last November.
Key finished his career at Indiana State as the Sycamores’ sixth-leading scorer all-time with 1,650 career points. He was a first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference selection in 2020 and 2021, a second-team selection in 2019 and a member of the conference’s All-Freshman Team in 2018.
Key hails from Celina, Tennessee, located two hours northwest of Knoxville. In 2017, Key led Clay County High School to the TSSAA Class A State title game, averaging 42.7 points, 13.0 rebounds and 4.7 assists during Clay County’s three games at the state tournament. He was named the state of Tennessee’s Class A “Mr. Basketball” for that 2016-17 campaign.
During his senior season at Clay County, Key scored 1,380 points, breaking the 25-year-old TSSAA state record for most points in a single season that was held by former Kentucky star Tony Delk.
Key becomes the seventh incoming graduate transfer in program history, joining forward John Fields (2010-11), guard Antonio Barton (2013-14), guard Ian Chiles (2014-15), forward Lew Evans (2016-17), guard James Daniel III (2017-18) and forward E.J. Anosike (2020-21).
-UT Athletics
