Men's Basketball | 2/24/2016 3:05:00 PM

Georgia Southern (13-14, 9-8) vs. Appalachian State (7-20, 5-11)
Thursday, Feb. 25 - Hanner Fieldhouse (4,325) – 7:30 p.m.
Live Video | Live Stats | Tickets | Season Promotions | Gameday Guide: Basketball
Television: ESPN3
Radio: 103.7 WBMZ-FM (Statesboro/Metter/Swainsboro), 102.1 WZAT-FM (Savannah), 1370 WLOP-AM (Jesup)
Promotions: True Blue Week Stamp Card Promotion continues; Senior Night – Join us as we honor the senior players for their hard work and determination in the classroom and on the court; Langston Chapel Middle School Step Team will perform.
Series Record: GS trails 25-20, W3
Last meeting: 1/25/2016, W 101-100 (A)
Probable Starters:
#2 Mike Hughes
#3 Ike Smith
#4 Tookie Brown
#10 Jake Allsmiller
#14 Coye Simmons

Georgia Southern Information:
[Stats] [Roster] [Schedule] [@GSAthletics_MBB] [Game Notes (PDF)]

Appalachian State State Information:
[Stats] [Roster] [Schedule] [@AppStateMBB]

Layup Line
• Georgia Southern plays its home finale when the Eagles host Appalachian State Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
• The game will be broadcast live on ESPN3.
• It's Senior Day, and Georgia Southern will recognize its lone senior, Devince Boykins, prior to tipoff.
• It's the last game of a stretch in which Georgia Southern plays four games in eight days.
• It's the second meeting of the season against the Mountaineers. Georgia Southern won the first game 101-100 in Boone on Jan. 25 with the help of a four-point play by Mike Hughes with 0.8 seconds left.
• Georgia Southern is in sole possession of fifth place in the Sun Belt standings, one game out of fourth and two games back of second. Appalachian State is in 10th place, two games behind eighth.
• Georgia Southern has a four-game lead on the two teams tied for ninth in the league - Texas State and Appalachian State - for the final Sun Belt Championship spot. The top-8 teams make the Sun Belt Championship March 9-13 at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans. 
• Without taking tiebreakers into consideration, the Eagles' magic number (combo of wins and/or opponent losses) to clinch a Sun Belt Tournament spot is two over Texas State and one over Appalachian State.
• Georgia Southern is 3-2 in its last five contests and coming off a 54-52 home win over Georgia State Tuesday evening. The Eagles have won nine of their last 14, including six at home.
• The Eagles are 29-12 under head coach Mark Byington in Hanner Fieldhouse and posted a 13-2 record in the building last season. The Eagles are 9-4 this season.
• Georgia Southern freshman Tookie Brown is ranked in the top-10 in the Sun Belt in scoring (4th, 17.6 ppg), assists (8th, 3.2 apg), steals (2nd, 1.8) and assist/turnover ratio (6th, 1.5). He ranks eighth among freshmen in NCAA Division I scoring.
• Brown has scored 20-plus points in nine games and reached double figures in 25 of 27 contests, including 24 in a row from Nov. 20 to Feb. 20.
• Brown (17.6 ppg) is half of the fourth-highest scoring freshman duo in the country. He and Ike Smith (11.7 ppg) combine to average 29.3 points a game.
• Eagle sophomore Mike Hughes is one of four Sun Belt players ranked in the league's top-10 in scoring (10th, 14.6) and top-20 in rebounding (18th, 5.0). Hughes is averaging 17.5 points and 5.2 rebounds in Sun Belt games.
• Appalachian State is 1-4 in its last five but coming off a 78-74 home win over Troy Saturday. 
• The Mountaineers are 2-10 on the road and 2-6 in league road games.
• Frank Eaves leads the league in scoring with 19.5 points a game. Ronshad Shabazz averages 11.7 points and 3.8 rebounds.
• Appalachian State has lost six games by five points or less this season and four by one point, including their first meeting against the Eagles.

The Series
• Georgia Southern trails the all-time series, which began in 1949, 25-20, but the Eagles swept the Mountaineers last season in both schools' first year in the Sun Belt and topped App 101-100 in the Holmes Center on Jan. 25.
• The Eagles are 5-13 in the last 18 contests, dating back to 2006.
• Georgia Southern is 10-8 at home against App and has won three of the last four.
• Both meetings in the 2012-13 campaign went into overtime, and the Mountaineers won them both.
• Last Meeting - 1/25/2016 - Holmes Center: Mike Hughes hit a 35-foot 3-pointer, was fouled and made the free throw with 0.8 seconds left to lift Georgia Southern to a 101-100 win over Appalachian State.
• Hughes scored nine of Georgia Southern's last 12 points as the Eagles overcame an eight-point deficit in the final 2:36 of the contest. Georgia Southern trailed 98-93 with a minute to play, but Hughes made a putback layup and after the Eagles forced a 30-second clock shot violation, Jake Allsmiller drilled two free throws to cut the margin to one point with 10 seconds left. 
• Georgia Southern fouled Jacob Lawson, who made a pair to give the Apps a 100-97 lead with 5.5 to go. The Eagles inbounded to Tookie Brown, who sped up the court, spaced to the wing and hit Hughes with a pass in the middle of the court. Hughes let it fly and was fouled by Chris Burgess with 0.8 on the clock. The officials reviewed the play, and App used its final timeout, but Hughes was unfazed by the delay, calmly swishing the free throw.
• The Mountaineers tried a long pass on the inbounds play, but the ball sailed out of bounds at the other end of the court without being touched. The Eagles inbounded to Brown under their own basket to seal the win. 
• Brown finished with a career-high 34 points to go along with three assists and three steals, and Hughes tallied 19 points, a career-high nine rebounds and two blocked shots. Devonte Boykins scored a career-high 15 points, and Allsmiller scored 11. Shawn O'Connell collected 10 points and six rebounds.
• Frank Eaves made 9 of 16 3-pointers and scored 37 points to lead the Mountaineers. Ronshad Shabazz netted a career-high 29 points.
• Last time in Hanner - 1/29/2015:  Jelani Hewitt tallied 17 points, five assists and four steals, and Georgia Southern made 12 3-pointers to run away with an 83-46 win over Appalachian State.
• Hewitt was 5-for-10 from long distance for the Eagles, while Eric Ferguson made two from behind the arc and scored 11 points. Trent Wiedeman recorded 16 points, six rebounds and two steals and got into the act with one triple, and Angel Matias posted 13 points and three steals.
• Jake Allsmiller hit a pair from long distance, while Devonte Boykins and D.J. Suter each notched a 3-pointer. The Eagles outscored the Apps 36-6 from downtown and shot 52 percent for the game and 68 percent in the second half, while knocking down 10-of-13 from 3-point range. The Mountaineers were held to 29 percent shooting in the game and 23 percent in the first half.
• The Eagles started the game with a 13-2 run, keyed by five points from Wiedeman and a 3-pointer by Allsmiller, and were never threatened in the contest. The margin grew to as many as 17 points in the first frame on a transition layup by Ferguson, and Georgia Southern led 33-16 at the break.
• A 3-pointer by Hewitt sparked an 11-4 Georgia Southern run to start the second half, and the Eagles led 44-20 after a Kyle Doyle layup five minutes into the stanza. The lead grew to as many as 42 points after a 3-pointer from the wing by Suter with 1:44 to go.
• Frank Eaves led Appalachian State with nine points, while Jacob Lawson and Rantavious Gilbert each scored eight points.

Team Storylines
• The Eagles are led in scoring by freshman Tookie Brown. The last time a freshman led Georgia Southern in scoring was the 1999-2000 season, when the school's all-time scoring leader, Julius Jenkins, led the Eagles with 15.5 points a game. Elton Nesbitt averaged 15.7 points a game to lead the Eagles in scoring as a newcomer to the program in 2003-04, but it was his sophomore season after spending a year at Compton Community College.
• Brown and fellow rookie Ike Smith average 29.3 points a game combined, making them the fourth-highest freshmen scoring duo in the country. Dwayne Bacon and Malik Beasley of Florida State (31.9 ppg) lead the nation, Rice's Marcus Evans and Marquez Letcher-Ellis are second (30.8) and Duke's Brandon Ingram and Luke Kennard (29.4) are third.
• Georgia Southern's seven freshmen and redshirt freshmen combine for 41.6 points a contest, the third-highest total in the country.
• Tookie Brown, Ike Smith and Mike Hughes all scored 20-plus points in the win over UT Arlington Feb. 4. The last time three Eagles scored 20-plus points in a game was Jan. 16, 2014, an 88-81 overtime over Furman in Hanner Fieldhouse. Angel Matias (21), Jelani Hewitt (21) and Tre Bussey (26) all scored 20-plus points.
• Georgia Southern's 11 blocked shots against UT Arlington Feb. 4 were one shy of the school record, set against Texas San Antonio in 1989.
• Mark Byington is coaching in his 104th career game today and his 93rd at Georgia Southern .
• Under Mark Byington, Georgia Southern is 35-5 in games when leading at half and 43-1 when leading with five minutes to go.
• Since joining the Sun Belt in 2014, 19 Georgia Southern games against Sun Belt schools have been decided by five points or less, and the Eagles are 12-7.
• The Eagles are averaging 75.9 points a game this season and have scored 80-plus points in nine games and 100-plus in three contests. Georgia Southern scored 80-plus points in six contests last year.
• The Eagles have played every team in the league at least once and posted a 4-6 record through the first half of conference play.
• Eleven different Eagles have scored 10 or more points in a game this season.
• Georgia Southern is 21-6 in Hanner Fieldhouse in its last 27 contests there.
• Georgia Southern posted a 4-6 record in the non-conference portion of its schedule.
• With 11 of 12 scholarship student-athletes who are freshmen, redshirt freshmen or sophomores (92 percent), Georgia Southern has the highest percentage of underclassmen on its current roster of the 345 NCAA Division I squads. Liberty (91 percent), Ohio State (85 percent), Fairleigh Dickinson (85 percent) and Wyoming (80 percent) round out the top 5.
• Devince Boykins is the lone scholarship senior on the Eagles' roster, but this is his first year in the program.
• Georgia Southern lost 76 percent of its scoring and 72 percent of its rebounding from last season.
• The Eagles were picked 10th in the Preseason Sun Belt Conference Coaches Poll.
• Three student-athletes who redshirted last season - Jonathan Sanks, Aubrey McRae and Shawn O'Connell - are making their debuts this season.
• Georgia Southern has used 11 different combinations of starting lineups this season.
• The Eagles lost their first Sun Belt game after leading at halftime at Georgia State Jan. 19 (16-1).
• The Eagles' 101-100 win over Appalachian State Jan. 25 was their first win when allowing 100 points since a 112-104 triumph over Old Dominion Jan. 7, 1978. It was just the third time Georgia Southern has won a game when conceding 100 points (135-109 vs. Piedmont, 2/24/1951 and 110-106 vs. Samford, 1/20/1975). It was the first time the Eagles put up 100 points against a Division I opponent since a 116-73 victory over UC Davis Nov. 12, 2006.
• Georgia Southern played its first ranked opponent since 2008 when the Eagles traveled to No. 7/6 Duke Dec. 15. Their last game against a ranked opponent was also at Duke Nov. 11, 2008.
• The Eagles played their Sun Belt opener on the road for the second straight season. Georgia Southern is 0-2 all-time in Sun Belt openers.
• The Eagles played six of their first eight games on the road, a stretch that included contests at Ole Miss, Auburn and No. 6 Duke.
• Georgia Southern's 21 steals against Bob Jones (11/30) was one shy of the school record set against Little Rock in 1981 and tied against The Citadel in 2004.
• After not playing an SEC opponent since a 78-75 loss to Auburn Dec. 30, 2011, the Eagles have faced two this season. Georgia Southern fell 82-72 at Ole Miss Nov. 16 and 92-62 at Auburn Nov. 20.
• Georgia Southern's 116 points in a 116-49 season-opening win over Webber International Nov. 13 were tied for the 16th most all-time and the most since a 116-73 neutral site win over UC Davis Nov. 12, 2006, which was the 2006-07 season opener.

Next Up
• Georgia Southern caps the regular season with a pair of contests in Louisiana. The Eagles travel to ULM Thursday and face UL Lafayette Saturday.

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