UT Seeks 33rd Consecutive Home Victory

• Saturday's game against Chattanooga marks Tennessee's official 2008-09 regular-season opener and signals the beginning of the 100th season of varsity basketball on Rocky Top. A season-long centennial celebration includes the selection of a Tennessee Basketball All-Century Team. Ballots are available in the Thompson-Boling Arena concourse for all home games.
• As of Tuesday, Nov. 11, less than 300 tickets remained available for the Chattanooga game.
• The Volunteers went 2-0 in the exhibition portion of their schedule, downing NCAA Division II teams Indianapolis 87-73 on Nov. 3 and Tusculum 82-51 on Nov. 7.
• The Vols return a total of six letterwinners, including two starters, from last year's squad that posted a 31-5 overall record and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
• Vols newcomers include four true freshmen, one junior-college transfer and a redshirt freshman.
• A panel of SEC and national media tabbed the Vols as the preseason favorite to win the Southeastern Conference championship this season. Tyler Smith was named the preseason SEC Player of the Year by the panel and also was a first-team All-SEC selection by the league's coaches.
• Tennessee is 3-0 in home-openers under head coach Bruce Pearl, and the Vols' average margin of victory in those games is 23.7 points. The average attendance for those contests has been 20,298.
• True freshman point guard Daniel West was ruled ineligible last week and will not play for the Vols this season. West had been sidelined since official team practice began on Oct. 17 with an eligibility clearance issue, and his future enrollment status at UT has not been determined.
• A win Saturday against Chattanooga would give Tennessee its 33rd straight home victory; that would tie for the longest home win streak in program history. The Vols won 33 straight home games from Jan. 3, 1966, to Feb. 3, 1968, under legendary head coach Ray Mears.

Tennessee Trends

• Tennessee is 45-2 at Thompson-Boling Arena since the start of the 2005-06 season.
• UT has a 32-game homecourt winning streak. The Vols' last home loss was a 78-80 decision to Kentucky in the final home game of the 2005-06 season.
• The Vols are 23-0 in non-conference home games under Bruce Pearl.
• Bruce Pearl is 16-8 against ranked teams while at Tennessee.
• The Vols have made at least one 3-pointer in 355 consecutive games.
• Under Bruce Pearl, UT is 70-6 when leading or tied with five minutes left in the game.
• UT is 50-5 when scoring 80 or more points under the direction of Bruce Pearl.
• Tennessee has an all-time record of 1,422-908-2 in 99 seasons of basketball.
• UT's 634 regular-season SEC victories rank third all-time in the SEC. Only Kentucky and Alabama have won more league games.
• Tennessee is 245-86 in 22 seasons in Thompson-Boling Arena. The Vols have posted winning home records in 18 of their 21 full seasons in the facility.
• Tennessee is the only Division I school ever to rank in the top five nationally in attendance for football, men's basketball and women's basketball in the same season. The Vols turned the trick for the fifth time in 2007-08.

The Chattanooga Series

The Vols have faced the Mocs 35 previous times on the hardwood, with the Big Orange holding a 30-5 all-time advantage dating to 1913 ... Tennessee had won 23 straight meetings against the Mocs until Chattanooga posted a 69-68 win over the Vols in Knoxville on Dec. 5, 2004 ... The Vols posted a hardearned 76-70 win over the Mocs last season in Chattanooga despite getting outrebounded 46-31 ... Both squads had five players score in double figures in that game, as UT was led by then-senior Chris Lofton's 16 points and Stephen McDowell poured in 14 for the Mocs ... The last two games in the series have been decided by an average of 3.5 points.

Noting Chattanooga

The Mocs, who return three starters from last year's 18-13 (13-7 SoCon) team, were tabbed by the Southern Conference head coaches as the preseason favorites in the North Division ... Fifth-year head coach John Shulman leads a team that features two players who were named to the coaches' preseason All-SoCon Team in senior forward Nicchaeus Doaks and senior guard Stephen McDowell ... Doaks and McDowell are among five experienced returners on this year's roster ... Mocs fans are excited to see 6-7, 235-pound freshman forward Chris Early in action ... Early initially signed with Oklahoma before enrolling at UTC and was a high school teammate of O.J. Mayo (Memphis Grizzlies) and Patrick Patterson (Kentucky) ... Chattanooga made a run to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in 1997 and is 72-55 in four seasons under Shulman, whose team's depth this year may be its biggest strength.

Point Guard Predicament

The Vols navigated the exhibition portion of their schedule very thin at point guard, as junior J.P. Prince (shoulder) and freshman Daniel West (eligibility clearance issue) both were sidelined ... Even returning walk-on Tanner Wild was (and remains) out with a back injury ... Junior-college transfer Bobby Maze started at the point and averaged 29 minutes in UT's two exhibition wins ... Junior Josh Tabb could backup Maze at the point, but Tabb was held out of both exhibition games by head coach Bruce Pearl for academic reasons ... His status for the regular-season opener against Chattanooga has not been announced ... As a result of Tabb's absence, sophomore walk-on Michael Hubert served as Maze's backup in the exhibitions, averaging 11 minutes off the bench ... Prince could return as early as the Chattanooga game, which would provide a huge backcourt boost, but the Vols received official word last week that West is ineligible and cannot play for UT this season.

Vols Own A 32-Game Home Win Streak

Tennessee's 32-game home winning streak is the Vols' longest in Thompson-Boling Arena history and the school's longest in more than three decades ... It is the second-longest in school history ... The last team to leave Knoxville with a win was Kentucky after an 80-78 decision on March 1, 2006 ... The Vols were 16-0 at home in both 2006-07 and 2007-08 ... In his fourth season at UT, Bruce Pearl is 45-2 in Thompson-Boling Arena ... Tennessee's 32-game streak is the third-longest active streak in NCAA Division I.

Games - Started - Ended
33 - Jan. 2, 1966 - Feb. 24, 1968
32 - Nov. 10, 2006 - present

SEC Media Favors The Vols

A select panel of both SEC and national media members chose Tennessee as the preseason favorite to win its 10th Southeastern Conference men's basketball championship ... The 30-member media panel had 23 voters select the Vols to win the SEC East ... Tyler Smith was the top choice for SEC Player of the Year, garnering 17 of the 30 votes ... Smith was joined on the preseason All-SEC first team by Patrick Patterson (Kentucky), Nick Calathes (Florida), Devan Downey (South Carolina) and A.J. Ogilvy (Vanderbilt).

Pearl's Take on the New 3-Point Line

A noteworthy change to the men's college game this season is the moving of the 3-point line from 19'9" to 20'9" ... The desired effect of this change is to extend the game and open up the interior (also making physical interior play more visible to officials) ... UT head coach Bruce Pearl, who voted against the change, said, "I don't know if it's going to open the lane up more. I think it will make zone defenses much more effective. The matchup zone will make a comeback." ... Pearl added that the men's game will see less hedging out to challenge a shooter as a result of the new line ... Tennessee ranked 11th (9.3) and 25th (8.7) among Division I teams the last two seasons, respectively, in 3-pointers made per game.