UT men's basketball season tickets not far behind last season

On the doorstep of the 2012-13 season, Tennessee men's basketball is just 63 season-ticket packages away from matching the total sold at the end of the 2011-12 season.

With three months of games ahead, UT has sold 13,213 tickets. Sales last season increased through the year, topping off at 13,276, after a team picked to finish 11th in the SEC climbed onto the NCAA tournament bubble.

The 13,213 tickets represent 60.9 percent of Thompson-Boling Arena's capacity.

UT's Chris Fuller, the senior associate athletics director for development and external operations, expects sales to continue well into December and January. The close of football season usually produces a bump in attention and sales.

"Right now it's about where we expected to be," Fuller said Thursday. "We should still do a pretty good deal of business. We have high expectations and our schedule this year is not great for a coach but great for a marketer."

Fuller believes sales could climb over 14,000 and even scratch 14,500 — well below the school record of 16,647 in 2008-09, but well over last year's tally.

Beyond season tickets, UT has also sold 354 holiday ticket packages (pick three games in December) and 608 SEC packages (pick any five league games).

"Looking at last year's packages, we sold 937 combined so we're already tracking ahead of that this year," Fuller said.

According to Fuller, 13,873 tickets were sold for tonight's season opener against Kennesaw State. The figure doesn't include student tickets sales, for which 2,000 are reserved. Last year's opener against UNC Greensboro drew 17,483.