The East Tennessee State University (ETSU) men’s basketball team will face the Samford Bulldogs on Saturday at noon at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tennessee. The game will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU, and tickets are available through ETSUTickets.com.
ETSU enters the matchup with a 19-7 overall record and an 11-2 mark in Southern Conference (SoCon) play. The Bucs are approaching the SoCon regular season title with five games remaining. Their recent 73-61 victory over Chattanooga, combined with Wofford’s loss to Samford, has reduced ETSU’s magic number to four. This means that another win for ETSU and another loss for Wofford would allow the Bucs to clinch at least a share of the regular season title as early as next Wednesday when they visit Furman.
A standout player for ETSU has been , who scored a career-high 24 points against Chattanooga on Wednesday. He has reached double figures in four consecutive games and became the sixth different Buc to score 20 or more points in a game this season. The team is 13-3 when at least one player scores 20 or more points.
Defensively, ETSU continues to lead the SoCon, ranking among the nation’s best in both scoring defense and field goal defense. They are currently the only team in the conference allowing fewer than 70 points per game during league play, and have posted a 13-1 record when holding opponents below that threshold this season.
Samford comes into Saturday’s contest with a 14-10 overall record and a 7-6 mark in conference play. Under first-year head coach Lennie Acuff, Samford has found momentum late in the season, winning four straight games by an average margin of 16.3 points. Their latest victory was a decisive 97-80 win over Wofford in Birmingham on Wednesday. Jadin Booth and Dylan Faulkner have been central to Samford’s offense, combining for an average of 38.2 points per game—accounting for nearly half of their team’s scoring output.
In their previous meeting this season, ETSU defeated Samford on the road by a score of 76-75, with scoring the deciding basket with four seconds left as part of his then-career highs of 26 points and 11 rebounds.
For additional details about ETSU men’s basketball, visit ETSUBucs.com.
