University of Tennessee Athletics
Basketball Practice Begins Saturday
October 15, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Oct. 15, 2004
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee basketball team begins its quest for its seventh postseason appearance in the last eight seasons when the Vols take the court at Thompson-Boling Arena for their first official practice of the 2004-05 basketball season.
For the first time since the 1998-99 season the Vols return all five starters and a total of nine letterwinners from a team that received an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament. The Vols return their top four scorers and at least 78 percent of every statistical category from last season's team. A surprising 88.1 percent of UT's scoring and 85.5 percent of the Vols' rebounding is back from a year ago.
"I've never had this many guys returning," fourth-year head coach Buzz Peterson said. "That is why I am so excited about it. The amount of experience coming back is one of the biggest strengths of this team. They all have knowledge of the stuff we are running."
Leading the way for the Vols in 2005 will be Tennessee's tri-captains of Brandon Crump, Scooter McFadgon and C.J. Watson. Crump, a 6-foot-10 senior forward, led the team in rebounding last year with 6.8 rebounds while contributing 14.8 points. McFadgon, a 6-foot-5 senior guard, is the SEC's second-leading scorer after averaging 17.6 points per game as a junior. C.J. Watson, a 6-foot-2 junior guard, has recorded more assists over the last two seasons (305) than any other SEC player during that period.
The Vols will have less than three weeks of practice before tipping off the season with an exhibition game against Tusculum on Friday, Nov. 5. Following a Nov. 13 exhibition game against Carson-Newman, Tennessee will travel to Hawaii to open the regular season with a Nov. 22 game against Stanford in the first round of the EA SPORTS Maui Invitational.
