Watson's trip home strictly personal

The Tennessee men's basketball team is still striving to reach full strength going into Saturday's road trip to Ole Miss.

Watson returned to practice on Thursday aftera four-day trip home to Las Vegas.

"I just went home to take care of some personal problems," Watson said.

The junior point guard said it was family related and had nothing to do with UT basketball.

"That (trip home for Watson) was planned out a couple of weeks ago," UT coach Buzz Peterson said. "He came out big (in practice) and hasn't missed a step."

While in Las Vegas, Watson did make one side trip to have an old hamstring injury evaluated by a physician. "It wasn't really bothering me, but my mom just wanted me to get it looked at by a different doctor," he said. "He just said stretch. That's basically all I can do.

"I just went home to take care of that and some other things."

Meanwhile, McFadgon sat out his second consecutive day getting rehab on a thigh bruise and sprained left wrist.

"With the wrist and thigh bruise, we just thought another day might help him," Peterson said. "We hope to have him out there (today) going full steam."

The Vols need all the steam they can get going into the final five games of the regular season.

UT (11-13, 4-7 SEC) faces what amounts to a must-win situation taking on a Mississippi team (12-13, 3-9) that has lost seven of its past eight games.

"This is a big game," Peterson said. "It's huge and we need to get a win."

Watson, for one, is ready to get back on the court and forget about all the off-court issues.

"We know we can score," Watson said. "We've just got to stop somebody. "We can't take anything for granted. As long as we go down and guard them and play defense, we should be fine."

Watson has been one of the few bright spots as the Vols have lost six of their past seven outings.

His 15 points per game during the stretch leads the team. His shooting percentage is 47.8 in those seven games, 47.1 percent (16 of 34) from 3-point range.

Expect more of the same from Watson down the stretch.

"From here on out, that's what I've got to do to try and help us win games," Watson said. "With Scooter here or not, we've got to come out focused and step up.

"Even if he plays, we've got to help him because he has been injured."