UT Martin finds brand in international talent

Nestled in the small town of Martin, Ten. in Northwest Tennessee, the UT Martin has frequently been difficult to sell to potential recruits seeking a big stage to display their skills on. While the Kathleen and Tom Elam Center has hosted some legendary battles in the past, its 4,300-person capacity has rarely been a point of interest for those touring the university, and with the departure of head coach Ryan Ridder two seasons ago, Jeremy Shulman’s hiring signaled time for a rebrand.

At the mid-to-low major level, no school has found its stride in bringing in international talent more than Shulman and the UT Martin Skyhawks. Shulman has brought in 12 players representing 10 different countries for the 2025-26 season, marking an unprecedented standing in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“We’ve really made that our thing,” said Shulman. “I went to FIBA for the Serbia under-18 European championships, and people knew the UT Martin name… We’ve got a brand name, and I think it’s pretty cool. We’re not treated differently than mid, or even high majors.

“When we’re recruiting these guys, that doesn’t mean that we’ll get every player that we recruit or anything like that,” Shulman said. “It’s become such a niche for players worldwide to know that they can come here and play in a different style of system that’s not similar to a lot of American universities, and they can play more of a Euro-league system that fits their game and and fits what they want to do and fits how they want to play.”

The loss of players like Tarence Guinyard and Vladimir Salaridze seem to signal a rebuild for Shulman, but the intentions with a new-look squad look to be higher than last season.

“I loved our team last year,” Shulman said. “I thought we were really good, but we did have to adjust a little bit, and I think we did the right thing, adjusting, because we had such outstanding players, like Terrance and Vlad. This year, we’re going to be younger. There’s no doubt, but I think we can play our European system a little more. We can swerve even more into how we want to play, and I’m excited about that, even though we’re going to be younger this year.”

A roster lined with 10 freshman, most of them international, has fans and competition alike scratching their heads as to how to scout a team full of players with very little public film to watch.

“We did not go to any AAU events all summer,” said Shulman said. “We did not even go to any Junior College all summer. For the non-American kids, our focus is on pulling our finances to recruit internationally. Being there in person, I thought, was tremendous to be out there in person and make those connections and try to make this our thing.”

An oddly-highly retentive OVC serves as the competition for this Skyhawk roster, and Shulman is ready and waiting for the opportunity for his new freshmen to hit the court.

“It’s just on improvement right now, and the one interesting thing for us about having so many international guys is that we’re missing five players for our summer workouts,” he said back in August. “The OVC returned more top players than any other mid-major league that they could think of, and that’s just phenomenal for the OVC, phenomenal for the league, and just driving everything forward.”

In a rapidly-changing and ever-growingly competitive college basketball landscape, new and fresh ideas run rampant with programs scrambling to find ways to win in this new play-for-play era. Especially in a league like the OVC, Shulman’s approach to recruiting peaks curiosities, reevaluates standards and raises bars in a unique and possibly-lethal way for competing programs.

0 Comments