Ben Drayton III All-SoCon, Ferguson Earns Consensus All-Freshman Team

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A day before Georgia Southern Men's Basketball opens the 2011 SoCon Tournament, the Eagles picked up another pair of awards. The Southern Conference Media Association selected junior Ben Drayton to the All-Conference third team while Eric Ferguson was picked to the SoCon All-Freshman team. Drayton is the 32nd all-time all-SoCon selection and Ferguson joins Willie Powers III as the second consensus SoCon All-Freshman team honoree.

A St, Marys, Ga., native, Drayton enters the Southern Conference Tournament ranked 29th on the Georgia Southern career scoring list with 1,123 career points. He needs one point to tie Sonny Clements for 28th place. In the SoCon, he ranks eighth among the active career scoring leaders and second among non-seniors. He has 488 (15.7 ppg) points this season and needs 25 points to move into a tie for fifth place on the Georgia Southern scoring list for juniors.

He ranks seventh in the SoCon for scoring and 10th in field goal percentage with a .485 shooting percentage. Drayton has 141 assists for a 4.5 assists per game average which ranks fourth in the SoCon. His 1.9 steals per game rank third in the league and his 37.0 minutes per game average ranks second in the league, just behind Donald Sims of Appalachian State.

Drayton took control of the game at Wofford (February 12th) and scored 31 points to set a career high and reach 30+ points for the 57th time in school history. He also eclipsed head coach Charlton "C.Y." Young's career high of 30 points.

Statesboro, Ga., native Ferguson posted one of the best freshman seasons in school history. He has the second-highest scoring output among Georgia Southern freshmen with 368 points. Ferguson ranks third on the Eagles' freshman blocked shots and steals list with 26 blocks and 46 steals, respectively. He ranks eighth overall in the SoCon in steals (1.5 per game) and ninth in blocks (0.8 per game).

Ferguson reached double-figure scoring in 20 games and ranks 16th in the league and fourth among Georgia Southern freshmen all-time. He has 133 field goals for a tie for fourth place on the freshman field goals list. He needs 11 rebounds to reach the freshman top-five list in that category.

Georgia Southern will play next in the 2011 Southern Conference Tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Eagles open the tournament against Appalachian State on Friday, March 4th, in the second men's game of the day at McKenzie Arena. Tipoff will be at approximately 4:30 p.m.

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Category: Men's Basketball

Published on Thursday, 03 March 2011 16:59