Tennessee forward Admiral Schofield announced two months ago that he was declaring for the NBA Draft but wasn’t hiring an agent. That left the door open for him to return to Tennessee for his senior season if he pulled his name out of consideration before the end of May.
And on Tuesday, he announced he was doing just that.
Schofield took to Twitter to announce that he is returning to the Vols for his senior year for the upcoming 2018-19 basketball season. He stated that he was grateful for the opportunity presented to him by the NBA, but that he’s “hungry to once again chase championships with my teammates” at Tennessee.
1 more ?? @Vol_Hoops pic.twitter.com/iAgIHPIzuj
— ♠ACE BOOGIE ++? (@admiralelite15) May 29, 2018
The rising senior figures to be one of the biggest pieces in Tennessee’s upcoming 2018-19 season. He and Grant Williams, the returning SEC Player of the Year, headline the Vols’ cast of talented players. Tennessee returns all five starters, the SEC Sixth Man of the Year in Lamonte Turner, and most of their bench off the team that went 26-9 and secured a share of the SEC regular season title this past season.
Schofield, like most other Vols this past year, saw improvement from the previous season. But Schofield might have taken the biggest leaps in his game compared to the rest of the roster.
As a junior, Schofield saw drastic improvement in almost every statistical category from his sophomore year. His minutes per game increased from 19 to 28.1, his points per game from 8.2 to 13.9, his rebounds per game from 4.4 to 6.4, his assists per game from .8 to 1.5, and his steals per game from .3 to one per game. He was the Vols’ catalyst down the stretch of the season, leading the team with 19 points per game over the final eight games of the year, including UT’s run in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments.
In an interview with reporters after a workout last week, Schofield said he was enjoying the opportunities he was getting from NBA teams to show what he could do and learn from them what he needed to work on. He said at the time the only thing that would keep him from returning to school would be getting a first round grade from a team right now.
But that first round grade never came. And now Schofield is coming back for one more year at UT.
Schofield will look to build off his successful junior season and continue to improve his game this offseason in preparation for what could be a special senior year. Tennessee has already appeared in the top 10 and top 5 of some early preseason polls, and expectations are the highest they’ve been around UT’s men’s basketball team in years.
