Through the end of the 2019-20 academic year, we will be posting a season recap for each UTM athletic program. This edition of the “Skyhawk Season in Review” series features the men’s basketball team.
UTM faced a grueling schedule in 2019-20, traveling nearly 13,500 miles and enduring an eight-game road swing that led to a 50-day gap between home games (Nov. 9 through Dec. 29) in the non-conference season. That included a Nov. 26-27 visit to the Cancun Challenge in Playa del Carmen, Mexico – the first time in school history that the Skyhawks played outside the United States.
Overall, UTM faced eight 20-plus win teams, including four teams who won their respective conference championships. A sampling of non-conference opponents include ETSU (Southern Conference champion, one of only four 30-win teams in Division I), Wichita State (ranked as high as No. 16 in the national polls), Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley Conference regular season champion), Boston University (Patriot League champion) and Baylor (final No. 4 national ranking, spent five weeks at No. 1).
The Skyhawks were additionally ravaged by injuries as only three players (Quintin Dove, Derek Hawthorne Jr. and Miles Thomas) played in all 29 games.
Dove and Parker Stewart compiled postseason accolades as the pair each earned All-Ohio Valley Conference and NABC All-District 18 honors. Dove was the only Division I player to average at least 20 points and seven rebounds per game while shooting over 78 percent from the charity stripe.
The senior forward became the first Skyhawk to lead the OVC in scoring in league play (22.3 points per game) since two-time All-American Lester Hudson accomplished that feat in 2008-09. Stewart was the only Division I player to average at least 19.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.5 three-point field goals made per game. The redshirt sophomore guard joined Hudson as the only players in school history to win the OVC Newcomer of the Week award at least five times in a single season.
Hawthorne also wrapped up his two-year career as a Skyhawk, ranking in the top-10 in the OVC in scoring (14.2 points per game), free throw percentage (.798) and minutes played (34.0 per game). The senior guard provided one of the most memorable finishes in recent history when he drained a pull-up 25-foot three-point jumper just before time expired for the game-winning buzzer beater in the overtime victory against Eastern Illinois on Feb. 15.
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