ATLANTA – With the season set to begin Tuesday night, Tennessee’s All-SEC duo of Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams continued garnering preseason recognition Monday, as the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced its watch list for the 2019 Citizen Naismith Trophy Men’s Player of the Year.

Schofield and Williams are two of 50 players across the country selected as potential recipients of the player of the year honor. So far this offseason, Schofield was named to the Julius Erving Award watch list, while Williams earned a spot on the Karl Malone Award watch list.

Williams, the reigning SEC Player of the Year, led the SEC Champion Volunteers in scoring (15.2 ppg), was second in blocks (44) and rebounding (6.0 rpg) and finished fourth in assists (66) last season.

Schofield enjoyed a breakout junior campaign last season after moving from the post to the wing. A second-team All-SEC honoree, he led the Vols in rebounding (6.3 rpg) and ranked second in scoring (13.9 ppg) and 3-pointers made (64).

Tennessee was one of 11 schools to have multiple players on the list, including Duke, Gonzaga, Indiana, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, Villanova and Virginia. The Vols could also potentially face 13 players named to the list during the regular season.

A list of the midseason 30 team will be released on Feb. 13, 2019, followed by the 10 national semifinalists and four finalists on March 4, 2019 and March 19, 2019 respectively. The 2019 Citizen Naismith Trophy will be awarded on at the Naismith Awards Brunch on April 7, 2019, during the Final Four in Minneapolis.

The Naismith Trophy is awarded annually to the women’s and men’s college basketball players of the year. First awarded in 1969 to UCLA’s Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Naismith Trophy has become one of the most prestigious national honors awarded each year to the top players in the nation.

Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, the founder of the sport, Tennessee has never had a player win the award. Jordan McRae and Jarnell Stokes were the last UT players to be tabbed to the preseason watch list.