Hoops Preview: #18 Tennessee vs. UT Martin in season opener

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The 18th-ranked Tennessee men’s basketball is set to open its 112th season in program history when it takes on UT Martin Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET inside Thompson-Boling Arena.

Fans can catch Tuesday’s game on SEC Network and online or on any mobile device through WatchESPN. WatchESPN can be accessed through the ESPN App, or online at espn.com/watch. Kevin Fitzgerald and Dane Bradshaw will have the call.

Fans can also listen live on their local Vol Network affiliate to hear Bob Kesling and Bert Bertelkamp describing the action.

Tennessee defeated Lenoir-Rhyne in its lone exhibition game of the season on Oct. 30, 103-62. The Vols received standout performances from the freshman duo of Kennedy Chandler and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield—Chandler scored 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting, while Huntley-Hatfield posted a double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds.

Tuesday’s matchup marks the fifth all-time between the Vols and Skyhawks, with Tennessee holding a perfect 4-0 record in the series. It also marks the first of six games that the Vols will play this season against another team from the state of Tennessee.

Up next, the Vols are set to take on East Tennessee State on Sunday at 12 p.m. ET inside Thompson-Boling Arena. The game will be broadcasted on SEC Network and can be streamed online and on any mobile device through WatchESPN.

THE SERIES
• Tennessee leads the all-time series with UT Martin, 4-0, dating to 1993. All four meetings took place at Thompson-Boling Arena.
• Tennessee’s average margin of victory over the Skyhawks is 19.3 points. The most recent clash was a 68-62 Vol victory on Dec. 29, 2010—the narrowest MOV in the series.
• The Volunteers are 38-6 all-time against UT System opponents. That includes a 34-6 mark against UT Chattanooga.
• Tennessee owns a 61-2 all-time record against current members of the Ohio Valley Conference.
• Martin is a five-hour drive west of Knoxville (332 miles).
• UT Martin Chancellor Dr. Keith Carver earned his doctoral degree from UT Knoxville, where he held various executive leadership roles. His son, J.T. Carver, is a freshman placekicker on the Volunteers football team.

SCOUTING REPORT
• Tennessee finished last season with an 18-9 (10-7 SEC) record and made its third consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
• Senior forward John Fulkerson sustained a season-ending facial fracture and concussion in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals. In April, he announced that he would run it back one last time as a super senior.
• In UT’s lone exhibition, true freshmen Kennedy Chandler (21 points, four 3FGs, six assists) and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (15 points, 12 rebounds) dazzled.
• If exhibition-game stats counted, Tennessee’s 17 3-pointers made would have been a program-record, and the Vols’ 46 3-point attempts would have been the second-highest single-game total in school history.
• Wednesday is freshman guard Jahmai Mashack’s 19th birthday. He has never celebrated his birthday outside of California.

LAYUP LINES
• The 2021-22 campaign is Tennessee’s 35th season in Thompson-Boling Arena. UT owns a 409-138 record in 547 games at TBA.
• Tennessee owns a 31-3 record in season-openers at Thompson-Boling Arena, and the Vols have won each of their last four home-openers.
• This is the second time the Vols have hosted UT Martin for their home-opener. Tennessee defeated the Skyhawks, 97-80, to open the 1993-94 campaign.
• With sales of 13,525 to date, this marks the third straight full-capacity year that UT has exceeded 13,000 in season-ticket sales—that’s more than the capacity of several Division I venues.

A WIN WOULD…
• Give the Volunteers a 6-1 record in season-openers under head coach Rick Barnes.

ABOUT UT MARTIN
• The 2021-22 season marks the first at UT Martin for head coach Ryan Ridder. Ridder has collected a 143-73 overall record in eight seasons as a collegiate head coach—including the last four years at Bethune-Cookman University. The Lexington, Kentucky, native was the 2018 recipient of the Joe B. Hall Award, recognizing the top first-year head coach in the NCAA Division I ranks after his debut season at Bethune-Cookman.
• The Skyhawks are the only Division I program to not return a single player from the previous season. UT Martin’s 2021-22 roster includes 14 newcomers (nine transfers, five true freshmen).
• UT Martin’s roster features transfers from Bethune-Cookman, UAB, Georgia Tech, FIU, North Florida and South Alabama.
• North Florida transfer Josh Endicott, a Baxter, Tennessee, native was the most productive transfer at his previous stop. Endicott averaged 8.7 points and 6.2 rebounds per game during the 2020-21 season.
• UT Martin has four players on its roster from the state of Tennessee.
• The Vols and Skyhawks have played only four times previously and have not met since 2010. Of the 11 other Division I programs in the state of Tennessee, UT Martin is tied with Belmont for having face UT the least.
• UT Martin posted an 8-16 (6-14 OVC) record last season, finishing ninth in the 12-team Ohio Valley Conference.
• The Skyhawks do not have any NCAA Tournament appearances in program history and have made just one NIT (2009).
• Located in West Tennessee, UT Martin’s campus is roughly five hours from Knoxville and has an enrollment of around 7,000 students.

LAST MEETING WITH UT MARTIN
• Tennessee overcame a four-point halftime deficit to defeat UT Martin, 68-62, on Dec. 29, 2010, at Thompson-Boling Arena.
• Junior wing Scotty Hopson led the Vols with 17 points, while Freshman All-American and eventual first-round NBA Draft pick Tobias Harris logged a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
• For the Skyhawks, guard Reuben Clayton led the way with 21 points.
• Tennessee shot 49 percent from the field while limiting Martin to 39 percent shooting. The Vols went 5-of-16 (31 percent) from 3-point range and were 15-of-20 (75 percent) at the free-throw line.
• Despite being undersized, UT Martin out-rebounded the Vols 31-29.
• The two benches combined for 66 points (UT 34, UTM 32).

PAT SUMMITT A UT MARTIN GRAD
• From 1970-74, the legendary Pat (Head) Summitt led the UT Martin Lady Pacers to a 64-29 record, two trips to the national championship tournament (1972 and 1973) and graduated as the school’s all-time leading scorer (1,045 points).
• In 1997, UT Martin designated a street on campus “Pat Head Summitt Avenue” and named the basketball court in Skyhawk Arena “Pat Head Summitt Court,” for its former star player. Summitt’s Lady Vols christened the newly-named court with a 73-32 victory on Nov. 23, 1997.
• Summitt, who led the Lady Vols to 1,098 victories during a Hall of Fame coaching career, passed away on June 28, 2016.

2008 WIN OVER SKYHAWKS HISTORIC
• Tennessee’s win over UT Martin on Nov. 18, 2008, gave Tennessee its 34th straight home victory, setting the record for longest home win streak in program history.
• That streak was eventually extended to 37 games before the Vols fell at home on Gonzaga on Jan. 7, 2009 (89-79 in overtime).

MEMORABLE VOL PERFORMANCES AGAINST UT MARTIN
• Ed Gray scored 29 points against UT Martin in the 1993-94 meeting; it was Gray’s Tennessee debut.
• On Dec. 30, 2002, UT Martin has had the misfortune of facing a Tennessee team led by forward Ron Slay, who earned second-team All-America acclaim and was named SEC Player of the Year that season. Slay poured in 21 points vs. the Skyhawks to go along with nine rebounds.
• Sophomore center Brian Williams enjoyed a career night while powering the Vols to a 91-64 win over UT Martin on Nov. 18, 2008. Williams scored a career-high 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting and pulled down 12 rebounds to log his second career double-double,
• Tyler Smith poured in 19 points to join Williams as one of five Vols who scored in double figures in that 2008 triumph.

VOLS SUCCESSFUL ON THE IN-STATE CIRCUIT
• Tennessee has won its last five games against in-state opponents and is 20-5 vs. in-state foes under coach Rick Barnes.
• Those 20 wins include triumphs over Vanderbilt (10x), Tennessee Tech (3x), ETSU (twice), Lipscomb (twice), Chattanooga, Memphis and Tennessee State.
• The Vols open the regular season with back-to-back home games against UT Martin (Nov. 9) and ETSU (Nov. 14).

FULKERSON QUESTIONABLE
• The status of Tennessee super senior forward John Fulkerson is questionable for Tuesday. Fulkerson is rehabbing a fractured thumb on his left (shooting) hand. The injury happened during an intrasquad scrimmage on Oct. 16 and caused him to miss UT’s exhibition game on Oct. 30.
• True freshman forward Jonas Aidoo has been cleared for competition after returning from an illness that sidelined him for multiple weeks in October.