KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee infielder Max Ferguson was named to the Perfect Game/Rawlings Preseason All-America second team this week.
The sophomore infielder led the SEC with nine stolen bases while batting .333, scoring 12 runs and hitting two homers in 13 games played during the shortened 2020 season.
Entering his third season with the Vols, Ferguson has been tabbed one of the top 2021 MLB Draft prospects by D1Baseball.com (No. 24) and Baseball America (No. 48).
During his two seasons on Rocky Top, Ferguson has totaled 32 hits, 23 runs scored, 15 RBI, 27 walks, and 13 stolen bases despite missing a large portion of his freshman season due to injury.
Ferguson was one of 14 SEC players named to Perfect Game’s three preseason All-America teams. The honor marks the first All-America recognition for Ferguson during his career. The Florida native was named to the SEC Spring Academic Honor Roll in 2019 and 2020.
To see Perfect Game’s complete list of All-America teams, click HERE.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced the John R. Wooden Award® presented by Wendy’s® Midseason Top 25 Watch List, and Tennessee’s Rennia Davis is among the players in consideration.
Chosen by a poll of national college basketball experts based on their performances during the 2020-21 season thus far, the list consists of 25 student-athletes who are front-runners for the sport’s most prestigious honor.
The players on the list are considered strong candidates for the 2021 John R. Wooden Award Women’s Player of the Year presented by Wendy’s. Players not chosen to the preseason or midseason list are still eligible for the Wooden Award™ National Ballot.
Davis, a 6-foot-2 senior guard/forward from Jacksonville, Fla., is averaging 12.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per game while shooting 45.6 percent from the field and 76.9 percent from the free-throw line. After a slow start this season, the SEC’s second-leading returning scorer has put up 15.7 ppg. and 10.7 rpg. with a pair of double-doubles over the past three contests. She has hit 59.4 percent (19-32) from the field, 60.0 (3-5) on threes and 100.0 (6-6) on free throws during that span, which included an upset of No. 15 Indiana in Bloomington on Dec. 17.
In the most recent game vs. Lipscomb, Davis helped UT improve to 6-1 on the season with a 19-point, 11-rebound double-double. It marked the 32nd of her career, tying her for sixth in Lady Vol history with hall-of-famer Tamika Catchings.
Davis is on her way to becoming one of only five Lady Vols who rank in the top 10 in both career scoring and rebounding average. The others are Patricia Roberts, Chamique Holdsclaw, Candace Parker and Catchings. She also is in the process of becoming only the 13th UT woman to average double figures in scoring all four years of her career.
The National Ballot consists of 15 top players who have proven to their universities that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the Wooden Award. Voters will rank in order 10 of those 15 players when voting opens prior to the NCAA Tournament and will allow voters to take into consideration performance during early round games.
The Wooden Award All American Team™ will be announced the week of the “Elite Eight” round of the NCAA Tournament. The winner of the 2021 John R. Wooden Award will be presented by Wendy’s following the NCAA Tournament in April.
About the John R. Wooden Award
Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award Program hosts the most prestigious honors in college basketball recognizing the Wooden Award Most Outstanding Player for men and women, the Wooden Award All American Teams for men and women and the annual selection of the Wooden Award Legends of Coaching recipient.
Honorees have proven to their university that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the John R. Wooden Award as set forth by Coach Wooden and the Wooden Award Steering Committee, including making progress towards graduation and maintaining at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA. Previous winners include Larry Bird (’79), Michael Jordan (’84), Tim Duncan (’97), Kevin Durant (’07), Candace Parker (’07; ’08), Maya Moore (’09; ’11), Chiney Ogwumike (’14), Breanna Stewart (’15; ’16) and last year’s recipients, Sabrina Ionescu of Oregon and Obi Toppin of Dayton.
Since its inception, the John R. Wooden Award has contributed nearly one million dollars to the universities’ general scholarship fund in the names of the Wooden Award All American recipients and has sent more than 1,000 underprivileged children to week-long college basketball camps. Additionally, the John R. Wooden Award partners with the Special Olympics Southern California (SOSC) each year to host the Wooden Award Special Olympics Southern California Basketball Tournament. The day-long tournament brings together Special Olympics athletes and Wooden Award All Americans and coaches in attendance. It is hosted at the Los Angeles Athletic Club during the John R. Wooden Award Weekend.
For up-to-date information on the Wooden Award, please go to www.woodenaward.com and follow the Wooden Award on Facebook at www.facebook.com/woodenaward and @WoodenAward on Twitter and Instagram.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Nine team blocks and an all-around outing from senior Wooden Award candidate John Fulkerson propelled the ninth-ranked Tennessee basketball team past Arkansas, 79-74, on Wednesday at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Over the course of the night, Tennessee (8-1, 2-1 SEC) committed just five turnovers, while forcing Arkansas (9-2, 1-2 SEC) to turn it over 20 times.
Fulkerson stuffed the stat sheet Wednesday, scoring 16 points, reeling in eight rebounds, blocking three shots and dishing off three assists.
National Defensive Player of the Year candidate Yves Pons blocked another four shot attempts, upping his career total to 110 and moving him into 15th on the program’s career blocks list. After turning down an invite to last year’s NBA Draft Combine and returning to Rocky Top, Pons has opened SEC play with 13 total blocks through the first three league games.
Pons also scored six points and pulled in three rebounds in Wednesday’s win.
James added nine rebounds, three blocks and a steal, while Bailey added a block and a steal to his own stat line.
Freshman wing Keon Johnson scored a season-high 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting and knocked down all six of his attempts from the foul line—all of which came in the contest’s final two minutes.
Arkansas controlled a large majority of the opening half, knocking down 57 percent of its shot attempts to take a 40-33 lead into halftime.
Out of the break, the Vols reeled off a 9-2 run, with Fulkerson scoring seven of those points to knot things up at 42 apiece with just more than 15 minutes remaining.
The next eight minutes were a back-and-forth affair, with the programs trading the lead twice as the Vols took a slim, 61-59 advantage into the night’s final 7:48.
Tennessee used a number of timely defensive stops and 10 consecutive makes from the foul line in the final minutes to seal the five-point victory.
Turn Me Up: Tennessee’s five turnovers were the fewest committed by the Vols this season, and the +15 turnover margin was the team’s best of the season.
Up Next: Tennessee hits the road this weekend for a Saturday afternoon matchup with Texas A&M. The opening tip from Bryan-College Station is slated for 2 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
Last November Carly Pearce shared with fans the raw emotional moment that was captured when she was presented with the news that she and Lee Brice won the CMA for Musical Event of the Year for “I Hope You’re Happy Now.”
She was doing an interview from home at the time…
Carly now shares that the trophy has arrived!
Along with her smiling photo, Carly added “My team surprised me yesterday with this gem. I have dreamt of winning one of these since I was 5 years old, so there were plenty of tears when I held my very own with my name on it in my hands. Thank you country fans & thank you CMA Country Music Association”
Congrats again to Carly Pearce and Lee Brice on their CMA win, and check out their winning collaboration right here, “I Hope You’re Happy Now.”
Morgan Wallen‘s sophomore effort Dangerous: The Double Album arrives in stores and online in less than 24 hours.
When the process to make his follow-up project to his debut If I Know Me began early last year, Morgan knew he had 20 songs already available, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, “At the beginning of 2020, we probably had about 20 songs that we felt were ready to be recorded…that we felt were worthy of being recorded. You know, 20 is a weird number, you can either whittle it down to 15, or you can do…maybe put out 5 here, 10 there, something like that.”
Then after a conversation with his manager, Morgan shares that an idea emerged, “There’s all kinds of things you can do with 20, but we just for some reason gravitated towards the idea of a double album.”
Even with 20 songs already available, Morgan still didn’t think a double album was a viable option, “I personally didn’t think it was going to be possible just because I scheduled to do a lot of touring in 2020…I didn’t think I was going to have enough time to put that much effort, and the proper amount of effort into doing an album like that, so I just kind of passed it off as a pipe dream almost.”
Of course all of this was in consideration very early in 2020 when Morgan’s touring and appearance schedule looked jam-packed…but then as we all know, quarantine hit.
Morgan shares, “When everything happened the way it did…I thought, ‘Well, maybe this might be possible.’ Fortunately, I was able to write 4, 5 songs really at the beginning of quarantine, kind of just right off the bat. Which got us to a number of about 25, that made me feel confident that it would be actually something we could do. We ended up with 30, it’ll be 32 eventually when the exclusive tracks come out, but that was never the goal number, we didn’t really have a goal number in mind, it’s kind of just what happened.”
From pipe dream to reality, Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album is heading to fans tomorrow, January 8th, with 30 awesome songs.
One of the 30 tracks is climbing its way up the country airplay chart right now. Check out the music video for “7 Summers” right here…
Have you also checked out the short film inspired by Morgan’s “7 Summers”–it connects the dots that you see in the music video?
When you have a little unexpected quiet time, what do you like to do?
Tenille Townes recently had a little time to kill, so she started to write a song.
Why did she have time to kill? Turns out that she locked her keys in her truck…which evidently, she’s quite good at.
Tenille shared her oops moment with her friends and fans on social media with the following message…
“Well, I spent a little time writing a song on my phone in a parking lot on my tailgate today waiting for a lock out from AAA… They may or may not have told me on the phone that I’m officially out of free ones that come with my membership ha…. this is really a problem lately…. I gotta quit locking my keys in “
Between the quarantine of 2020 and the recent holiday break, a lot of people are caught up on their favorite shows.
Did you finish a series that you’ve been wanting to watch? Or maybe discover something new to binge?
Darius Rucker had some time over the past several months to catch up on his favorite shows, so we checked in on what was on his watchlist.
Darius shared, “Ozark. Season Three of Ozark was just, if you’re an Ozark fan, I’m not gonna spoil it for you, but the ending was just genius. I never saw it coming. It was genius. Ozark is great.” Darius also recommends the show Letterkenny, “I watch that show, and I just laugh constantly. It’s a Canadian comedy and it just kills me.”
But his real viewing preference, “Peaky Blinders – my favorite show of all time, the Peaky Blinders. It is some of the best television I’ve ever seen.”
Darius added one more show to his list, “Billions is friggin’ genius. The writing on that show and the acting and then you throw some music in too, you know, man, it’s such a great show. Billions is such a great show.”
Of course Darius laughs about all the viewing options he has now compared to when he was a kid, “I’m 54 now, and I think back to my childhood and what TV was like when I was a kid and three channels and now you have 72 million different apps you can watch. It’s crazy, so there’s always something crazy on TV.”
Something we recommend watching? How about Darius’ video for his latest chart climber, “Beers and Sunshine”…
Jennifer Nettles jumps into the judge’s seat on a brand new program called Go Big Show – which premieres tonight on TBS.
With fellow judges…actress Rosario Dawson, wrestler Cody Rhodes, hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg and host Bert Kreischer they showcase talent unlike any other talent show around.
From monster trucks, to alligator trainers, to stunt archery and all kinds of other radical feats, Go Big Show takes talent to the next level!
The most talented of the talent will take home a $100,000 prize.
Go Big Show airs on TBS starting at 9 PM (ET)/ 8PM (CT)
Check out the trailer for the Go Big Show featuring Jennifer Nettles as one of the judges, right here…
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