KNOXVILLE – Admiral Schofield, Jordan Bone and Grant Williams shared the Tennessee spotlight for the past three basketball seasons.
They’ll have one more opportunity to share the court together soon.
The three Volunteers received invitations to the NBA draft combine May 15-19 in Chicago. Bone and Williams, both juniors with eligibility remaining, can use that time to gather more information before deciding if they will return to school for their senior seasons.
The deadline to withdraw from the June 20 draft is May 29. Under new NCAA rules, if a player is not drafted he has the option to return to college – to the same school if there is a scholarship available, or to another school if there isn’t.
Schofield has been listed as a second-round pick in most public mock drafts, a season after testing the NBA waters and receiving feedback. He bumped up his scoring average from 13.9 to 16.5 points a game while moving to more of a guard position, and he improved his 3-point percentage from .395 as a junior to .418 as a senior.
Williams, a two-time Southeastern Conference player of the year, also continued to show improvement from season to season, raising his scoring average from 12.6 as a freshman to 15.2 as a sophomore and 18.8 as a junior. He also improved from 5.9 rebounds as a freshman to 7.5 as a junior while shooting a career-high 56.5% from the field and 81.9% at the foul line.
His draft projections have ranged mostly in the late first round, although CBSSports.com’s mock draft released on Monday has the 6-foot-7, 236-pound forward going 13th to the Miami Heat.
Bone, the more likely of the two Vols juniors to remain in the draft, also has shown marked improvement over the course of his career. The 6-3 point guard nearly doubled his scoring average from 7.3 points per game as a sophomore to 13.5 as a junior, while averaging 5.8 assists and compiling a 3.0 assist-to-turnover ratio. He currently has the best career assist-to-turnover ratio in Vols history at 2.74.
Baseball Vols swept
The 23rd-ranked Tennessee baseball team was swept by sixth-ranked Arkansas over the weekend, suffering 11-9, 15-3 and 4-3 losses in Fayetteville.
That dropped the Vols to 31-14 overall and 9-12 in the SEC East, heading into a key series this weekend at home against 25th-ranked Missouri (30-15, 10-10). Tennessee’s strength – pitching, where it ranks third in the league – wasn’t that against the Razorbacks, as the Vols gave up 29 earned runs. Even when Tennessee hit well, such as in Friday’s game, the pitching wasn’t able to hold up its end of the bargain.
The offense did show some clutch capability, scoring all but one of its 15 runs over the three games with two outs.
Lady Vols go 1-2
The softball team pulled out a 2-1 win Sunday at Ole Miss but dropped the series 1-2 against the Rebels to fall to 37-12 for the season and 12-9 in the league.
Tennessee, which sits ninth in the USA Today/NFCA coaches’ poll, benefited from a ninth-inning fielding error that allowed Treasury Poindexter to score the go-ahead run. Senior Matty Moss threw a complete game for her 11th win of the season.
The Lady Vols are fifth in the SEC heading into the final weekend at home against Texas A&M (26-22, 4-16).
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.