ASHEVILLE, N.C. (March 11, 2024) – The ETSU men's basketball team will play for the Southern Conference Championship on Monday night when the seventh-seeded Buccaneers face top-seeded Samford at 7 p.m. inside Harrah's Cherokee Center Asheville.
 
GAME INFO
DATE: Monday, March 11
TIME: 7 p.m.
LOCATION: Harrah's Cherokee Center Asheville 
TEAMS: No. 7 ETSU (19-15) vs. No. 1 Samford (28-5) 
LIVE VIDEO: ESPN2 (Brock Bowling / Dean Keener)
LIVE STATS: SoConSports.com
RADIO: WXSM-AM 640 | 104.9 NASH ICON (Jay Sandos)
SoCon Tournament Headquarters
 
ABOUT THE BUCS
·      ETSU has won three games in three days to get to Championship Monday … Following wins over No. 10 VMI (98-66), No. 2 UNCG (73-62) and No. 3 Chattanooga (85-84, OT), ETSU sits 19-15 on the season
·      The Bucs are coming off a thrilling 85-84 overtime comeback win over Chattanooga on Sunday night where ETSU rallied from 20 points down with just over 14 minutes remaining to knock off its rival
·      ETSU is now the fourth No. 7 seed to reach the championship in the last five years
·      The last team to win four games to win the SoCon Championship was Clemson in 1939
·      The Bucs have won eight SoCon Tournament titles with the last coming in 2020 ... ETSU won four straight SoCon Tournament titles from 1989-1992, back-to-back titles in 2003 and 2004 and then in 2017 ... Tonight marks the Bucs' 13th appearance in the SoCon title game (ETSU is 8-4 in those previous 12 contests) ... ETSU's eight SoCon titles are the second-most among current programs (Chattanooga has 12) … Overall, ETSU is 44-25 (.638) in 34 all-time SoCon Tournament appearances
·      Brooks Savage is now the fifth Buccaneer head coach to guide a team to the SoCon Championship game in his first year … Steve Forbes took the Bucs to the 2016 title game (lost vs. Chattanooga), Murry Bartow won the 2004 SoCon title, Alan LeForce won in 1991 and Barry Dowd took the Blue & Gold in 1983 (lost to Chattanooga)
·      During this three-game run, the Bucs are averaging 85.3 points per game, while shooting 43 percent from beyond the arc (35-81) and averaging 11.7 made threes per game … ETSU has hit double-digit three-pointers in all three games – 11 vs. VMI, 12 vs. UNCG and 12 vs. Chattanooga … The Bucs are +6.3 on the glass (42.3-36.0) and forcing 17.7 turnovers per contest … ETSU is also averaging 16.3 offensive rebounds per game in Asheville … Ebby Asamoah is averaging 18.7 points per game, while shooting 64 percent from three (14-22), while Quimari Peterson is posting 17.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.7 steals in 31.2 minutes … Jaden Seymour is at 13.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in 25.7 minutes
·      Since Feb. 16, 1987, in a game against Davidson, the Bucs have made at least one 3-pointer in 1,158 consecutive games ... ETSU was 0-for-8 in that 1987 game ... With Western Kentucky going 0-for-21 from beyond the arc on Nov. 9 at Wichita State, the Bucs now have the third-longest streak in the country behind Duke and UNLV … UNLV tops the list with 1,223 games
·      The 2023-24 Buccaneer roster features 15 players ... ETSU's roster consists of one graduate player, two redshirt juniors, four juniors, one redshirt sophomore, three sophomores and four freshmen … Three players hail from North Carolina and Indiana, and one each from Tennessee, Iowa, West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland
·      The Bucs return four players from last year's roster who logged minutes, including starters Jaden Seymour and Allen Strothers, along with Justice Smith and Braden Ilic … Overall, ETSU only returns 29 percent of its scoring, 37 percent of its rebounding and 38 percent of its minutes played in 2022-23 … Seymour totaled 253 points, 218 rebounds and 1,793 minutes, Smith posted 237 points, 111 rebounds and 683 minutes, while Allen Strothers recorded 109 points, 51 rebounds and 776 minutes and Braden Ilic added for 46 points, 33 rebounds and 199 minutes
·      After losing three starters and eight players from last year's team, head coach Brooks Savage and his staff brought in 11 new guys for the 2023-24 season … Seven of the Bucs are transfers – Ebby Asamoah (Delaware), Karon Boyd (USC Aiken), DJ Hughes (Butler), Jadyn Parker (North Florida), Quimari Peterson (John A. Logan), Tyler Rice (William & Mary) and Timmy Fasehun (Gulf Coast State College) … Four Bucs are true freshmen – Maki Johnson (Huntington Prep), Gabe Sisk (Ballard HS), Jaxson Jones (The Skill Factory) and David Meriwether (Lawrence North HS)
 
ABOUT SAMFORD
·      Samford is having a historic season as they enter Monday night at 28-5 overall
·      The 28 wins are a new single-season program record
·      The Bulldogs got to Monday night with wins over Mercer (70-57) and Furman (84-77)
·      Samford is playing in its first-ever SoCon title game on Monday … The Bulldogs joined the league in 2008
·      This is Samford's first conference tournament title game appearance since 2006 when the Bulldogs were in the Ohio Valley Conference
·      Samford ranks fifth nationally in scoring offense (86.3), sixth in effective field goal percentage (.576), seventh in fastbreak points per game (15.4), eighth in steals per game (10.0) and three-point percentage (.396) ninth in field goal percentage (.494) and turnovers forced per game (16.6) and 10th in assists per game (17.7)
·      Individually, Samford is led by Achor Achor as he's averaging 15.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game
·      Rylan Jones, the SoCon's Newcomer of the Year, is posting 9.5 points and 4.9 assists per game, while shooting 40 percent from long distance (55-138)
 
SERIES HISTORY
·      ETSU leads the all-time series, 16-6, but Samford has won the last five meetings
·      The two teams played back on Feb. 24 with Samford winning 87-71 in Birmingham … The Bucs took the Bulldogs down to the wire back on Jan. 27 in Johnson City, but Samford prevailed, 75-72
·      In the two games this season, the Bucs allowed Samford to shoot 53 percent (59-111) from the field and average 81 points per game, while ETSU shot 39 percent (47-120) and averaged 71.5 points … Ebby Asamoah averaged 17.0 points and shot 50 percent from three (9-18) in the two games
·      ETSU's last win in the series came on Jan. 15, 2022 when the Bucs on 88-85 at Samford
·      ETSU and Samford have met once in SoCon Tournament history with the Bucs coming out on top 81-72 in the 2017 semifinals … T.J. Cromer scored a career-high 41 points (25 in the first half) en route to becoming the first player to eclipse 40 points in a SoCon Tournament game since Steph Curry went for 43 in 2009 … ETSU went on to win the championship the next day over UNCG
·      The Bucs had won 12 straight over Samford from 2015-16 – 2021-22
  
For more information on ETSU men's basketball, go to ETSUBucs.com and click on the men's basketball tab.