Men's Basketball | 1/13/2017 12:15:00 PM

Georgia Southern (10-6, 3-0) at Louisiana (12-4, 2-1)
Saturday, Jan. 14 - Cajundome (12,068) – Lafayette, La. - 8:15 p.m. ET
Live Video | Live Audio  | Live Stats
Radio: 105.5 FM WIFO (Jesup), 100.9 FM WLYU (Lyons), 103.7 FM WBMZ (Metter), 900 AM WJLG (Savannah)
Series Record: GS trails 5-2, L3
Last meeting: L, 87-78, 3/5/16 (away)
Probable Starters:
#0 Montae Glenn
#2 Mike Hughes
#3 Ike Smith
#4 Tookie Brown
#10 Jake Allsmiller

Georgia Southern Information:
[Stats] [Roster] [Schedule] [Game Notes]

Louisiana Information:
[Stats] [Roster] [Schedule]

Setting the Scene
• Georgia Southern travels to the Pelican State for a pair of Sun Belt contests. The Eagles open the trip by facing Louisiana in the Cajundome Saturday night.
• Georgia Southern is 4-1 in its last five and coming off an 84-79 overtime win at home against South Alabama.
• The Eagles are 3-0 in league play for the first time since the 2011-12 season. The last time GS started 4-0 in league play was in 1991-92, when the Eagles won their first nine games in the Trans America Athletic Conference.
• The contest against the Ragin' Cajuns is the Eagles' first Sun Belt road game. Georgia Southern is 3-5 on the road this season. 
• Georgia Southern features the Sun Belt's top two scorers in sophomores Ike Smith (19.7 ppg) and Tookie Brown (17.3 ppg).
• Louisiana is 4-1 in its last five and coming off a 69-60 win over ULM at home last Saturday. The Ragin' Cajuns are in the midst of a three-game homestand.
• Louisiana's 12-4 start is its best start since winning 12 of its first 15 in the 1993-94 season.
• Junior Bryce Washington is second nationally in double-doubles (13), third in total rebounds (197), third in rebounds per game (12.3) and seventh in offensive rebounds per game (4.19).
• The Ragin' Cajuns were picked seventh in the Sun Belt Preseason Coaches Poll, and Jay Wright was named third-team all-conference.
• Louisiana is 8-0 at home.

The Series
• Louisiana leads the all-time series, which began in the 1964-65 season, 5-2, and has won the last three. 
• Before the Eagles joined the Sun Belt in 2014-15, the teams had not met since 1992. They split that season series with each winning at home.
• Louisiana won both contests last season, including an 87-78 decision in the Cajundome. 
• The Eagles are 0-4 on the road in the series.

Team Storylines
• The Eagles are off to their best start in league play since the 2011-12 season.
• GS scored 75.9 points a game last season, the Eagles' best offensive output since averaging 77.5 points a game in 2005-06. GS scored 80-plus points in 10 games and 100-plus in three contests. The Eagles are averaging 79.6 this year and scored over 80 nine times.
• Last year, Georgia Southern set new school records with 3-pointers made (282) and attempted (834) in a season. GS ranks first in the SBC in threes per game (9.2) this season, and the Eagles have made 10 or more threes seven times.
• GS finished the non-conference portion of its schedule with a 7-6 record, its first winning record in non-conference play since 2014-15 when the Eagles went 8-3. It's just the second time in the last eight seasons that the Eagles were above .500 in non-conference games.
• Georgia Southern played six non-conference games against five teams that are currently in the top-100 in the NCAA RPI (Akron - 57, FGCU - 76, Minn - 10, NC State - 37, Winthrop - 113).
• GS is 6-1 since changing its starting lineup following an 86-49 loss at Minnesota Dec. 9.
• GS has a combined record of 25-11 in Sun Belt games played in January and February since joining the league in 2014-15.
• Georgia Southern plays conference games the rest of the way on Saturdays and Mondays.
• The Eagles played 10 of their first 12 games away from home. The stretch ended Dec. 20 at Winthrop, which also capped a four-game road trip that covered 4,120 miles of travel as the Eagles went from Minnesota to Ft. Myers to Miami to South Carolina and back home. 
• GS played three contests in Savannah this season and won all three. The Eagles defeated Florida A&M (83-72) and Radford (65-64) in the Savannah Invitational and won 94-75 at Savannah State.
• Mark Byington is coaching in his 124th career game today and his 113th at Georgia Southern. His 51 wins in his first three seasons at Georgia Southern are the best of any coach in the modern era.
• Under Mark Byington, Georgia Southern is 41-7 in games when leading at half and 51-4 when leading with five minutes to go, but three of those losses in each category have some this season.
• Georgia Southern is 28-7 in Hanner Fieldhouse in its last 35 contests there and 35-13 under Mark Byington.
• Since joining the Sun Belt in 2014, 20 Georgia Southern games against Sun Belt schools have been decided by five points or less, and the Eagles are 14-7.
• The Eagles are 20-1 in Sun Belt games when leading at halftime.
• The Eagles picked up the 1,200th win in the history of the program, which began play in 1926-27, when they topped Coastal Georgia 92-43 Nov. 14.
• GS held Coastal Georgia to 23.1 percent shooting from the field, the lowest for an opponent since holding North Georgia to 22.7 percent in 2003.
• Georgia Southern used 11 different combinations of starting lineups last year. GS has used six this season.

Next Up
• Georgia Southern finishes off its Louisiana swing by taking on ULM Monday at 8 p.m. ET in Fant-Ewing Coliseum.

Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. For tickets to Georgia Southern athletics events, visit GSEagles.com/tickets.