Defense travels, and in the 2025-26 season it carried UT Martin to the record books. The Skyhawks allowed just 63.2 points per game — fourth-best in all of NCAA Division I, trailing only Northern Iowa, Houston and Duke — and rode that steel spine to a 22-11 record, 13-7 in the Ohio Valley Conference, tying the school record for single-season wins. Only three teams in program history have ever won 22 games: the 2008-09 Lester Hudson squad, the 2016-17 group, and now these Skyhawks. Head coach Jeremy Shulman's second year in Martin, Tennessee was a masterclass in what culture and buy-in can do with a young roster — and the rest of the OVC spent the winter chasing them.
The signature night came Jan. 31 in Macomb, Illinois: an 84-44 demolition of Western Illinois, the largest margin of victory in UT Martin's Ohio Valley Conference history. The previous record — a 77-46 win at Southern Indiana — had been set just the year before, and the Skyhawks smashed it by nine points, never trailing and leading by as many as 44. Freshman Filip Petkovski, the Slovenian guard, dropped a career-high 17 points with eight rebounds; Andrija Bukumirović added 14; Matas Deniusas stuffed the sheet with 11 points, seven boards, five assists and three steals. The Skyhawks held the Leathernecks to 26.5 percent shooting and outscored them 40-14 in the paint. It was the kind of performance that announces a program's arrival.
Deniusas, a freshman forward, was the season's revelation — a multi-time OVC Freshman of the Week who started all 22 games early in the year and averaged 12.9 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.7 assists. Petkovski assumed primary ball-handler duties in late-game situations, an extraordinary show of trust from the staff in a freshman. Bukumirović, Filip Radaković and Pedro Santos provided the veteran backbone; in the OVC quarterfinal — a 66-63 grind over Eastern Illinois that matched the school wins record — Deniusas (17 and 10), Radaković (17 and four assists) and Bukumirović (11 and 10, his eighth double-double) carried the scoring. The run ended in the semifinals in Evansville, where No. 1 seed Tennessee State outlasted UT Martin 68-55 in a rematch of the regular-season finale. "In 29 years, this is probably the most enjoyable team that I have ever had," Shulman said afterward. "These guys were such a joy to coach every single day. There were no bad days."
That line tells you what Shulman built. Hired in 2024 from Eastern Florida State College — a junior-college powerhouse — he endured a 14-19 first season, then brought in nine new players and installed an unselfish, positionless system that clicked. "We want assisted points. It's fun to play in a system where the culture is to pass the ball and everyone else gets to eat," said assistant coach and general manager Jawaan Holmes. "The ball moves and everyone gets to eat. We call it energy. The ball has energy and it gives the team energy." The players bought in completely. Off the court, the program won the OVC Team Academic Achievement Award with a 3.495 team GPA — 11 of 14 eligible players on the Commissioner's Honor Roll, freshman Vladimir Khryapa earning a 4.0 and an OVC Academic Medal of Honor — plus the OVC Team Sportsmanship Award for just the second time in school history, and Lamine Niang brought home an OVC Community Service Award. Winning on the floor, winning in the classroom, winning in the community: the full Shulman package.
The history they chased is headlined by one name: Lester Hudson. The 2008-09 Skyhawks, coached by Bret Campbell, went 22-11 and won the OVC regular-season title behind Hudson — a two-time OVC Player of the Year who remains the most electrifying player in program history. On Nov. 13, 2007, Hudson recorded the first — and still only — quadruple-double in NCAA Division I men's basketball history: 25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals. Drafted 58th overall by the Boston Celtics in 2009, Hudson's shadow looms over Skyhawk Arena the way all program legends' do. The 2016-17 team, under Anthony Stewart, matched the 22-win mark at 22-13 and reached the OVC tournament final. Ryan Ridder's 2023-24 squad added a regular-season co-championship and the program's other Team Academic Achievement Award.
Here's the ghost in the trophy case: UT Martin has never won the OVC tournament. Never made the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. For a program with this much recent success — 22-win seasons in three different eras — the missing banner is the obsession. The Skyhawks play in Skyhawk Arena, a bandbox in rural northwest Tennessee where the student section makes every February game feel like a tournament game, and the OVC itself is a one-bid league where everything comes down to three days in Evansville. Shulman's system — the defense, the ball movement, the culture — is built for exactly that crucible.
The 2026-27 season is year three, and the arrow points only up. Deniusas and Petkovski return as sophomores with a full season of stardom under their belts. The defense that ranked fourth nationally doesn't rebuild — it reloads. And the goal, stated plainly in Martin, is the one thing this program has never done: cut down the nets in Evansville in March and take the Skyhawks to the NCAA tournament for the first time. The record-setting defense, the energy ball, the 22 wins — those were the foundation. What's next is the breakthrough.