MARTIN, Tenn. – Just 42 days away from its season opener, the University of Tennessee at Martin men’s basketball squad officially took the floor for the first time this evening as the Skyhawks opened preseason practice at the Kathleen and Tom Elam Center.
The defending Ohio Valley Conference regular season champions are entering a new era as Jeremy Shulman was appointed as UT Martin head coach on March 27. The Nashville, Tenn. native who won a program-record 346 games at Eastern Florida State College will look to carry over that success as the Skyhawks went 21-11 and won a share of their first league title since 2008-09 with a 14-4 record (equaling the school record for most OVC wins) a year ago.
Shulman and his staff searched far and wide on the recruiting trail to assemble a talented roster that includes 16 newcomers in 2024-25. The lone returning player is senior forward David Kamwanga, who made four starts last season and has appeared in 67 career games in a UT Martin uniform.
The 2024-25 Skyhawk roster includes plenty of international flair as a dozen UT Martin players (including Kamwanga) hail from outside the United States. The 12 Skyhawk student-athletes and 11 different countries represented are both the most in NCAA Division I men’s basketball in 2024-25, topping Hawai’i (nine international players from eight different countries) and High Point (eight countries) in both categories.
This year’s version of the UT Martin Skyhawks includes a balanced blend of two seniors (Kamwanga, Vladimer Salaridze), six juniors (Stefano Faloppa, Josué Grullon, Tarence Guinyard, AJ Hopkins, Damjan Vukčević, Matija Žužić), four sophomores (Andrija Bukumirović, Carlos Cortijo, Lamine Niang, Afan Trnka) and five freshmen (AJ Murphy, Filip Radaković, Pedro Santos, Fabian Spee, Lucas Williams).
Contracts for UT Martin’s nonconference opponents are in the process of being finalized as the complete 2024-25 Skyhawk schedule will be unveiled soon.
