KNOXVILLE -- Tennessee men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl confirmed Friday that center Philip Jurick from East Ridge High School won't return for a second year with the program.

Pearl said Jurick, a 6-foot-11 player who redshirted last season, likely will transfer to Chattanooga State in hopes of returning to a four-year program in the near future.

Chattanooga State coach Jay Price, a former Tennessee guard, said nothing had happened about Jurick with respect to the Tigers. Attempts to reach Jurick on Friday weren't successful.

Pearl, meanwhile, continued his stance from the spring that he hoped Jurick would return to the program, despite what appears to be a scholarship-number crunch, especially given Tyler Smith's Thursday decision to return for his senior season.

"I'm disappointed," Pearl said. "But Philip knows that everyone in the Tennessee basketball family loves him, and we wish him nothing but the best.

"It is our anticipation that he will go to Chattanooga State. And the possibility still exists that he could return to Tennessee one day."

Jurick -- once the nation's No. 68 overall prospect, according to Rivals.com -- has four years to complete his four seasons of eligibility, if he doesn't transfer this year to another NCAA Division I program. He could transfer anywhere after one season at a junior college.

UT is down to 12 scholarship players for next season. That would typically be one below the NCAA's maximum allotment, but the Vols were docked one scholarship until 2010-11 because of a poor Academic Progress Report score. UT's 924 (on a 1,000-point scale) was one point short of acceptable.

The Vols recently received a break, though, when star guard Skylar McBee from Grainger County High School accepted a walk-on opportunity at UT over scholarship offers from several mid-major programs. McBee said Pearl offered him a chance to duplicate former McMinn County High School star JaJuan Smith's route: Walk on for one year and earn a scholarship.

McBee hopes to fill a major void in UT's offense with his long-range shooting skill.