Men's Basketball Aims to End Davidson's Winning Streak Saturday
2/29/2008 5:08:00 AM | Men's Basketball
STATESBORO, Ga. --- The Eagles wrap up the regular season Saturday with their toughest home test to date - the Davidson Wildcats.
The Hanner Fieldhouse gates will open two hours early (5:30 p.m.) to help accomodate all ticket requests and students.
Georgia Southern (20-10, 13-6) will be aiming to spoil Davidson's (22-6, 19-0) perfect Southern Conference season. The Wildcats have won 18 in a row and have not lost in the 2008 calendar year.
GSU has dropped its last two games, both on the road: at Austin Peay and at Charleston. The loss at CofC ended a six-game conference winning streak.
“I think like any time you have to learn from your mistakes, but you've got to put the game behind you,” said GSU head coach Jeff Price. “Saturday's a huge game for us, obviously. We know we're going to have to play extremely well to give ourselves a chance to win and hopefully we'll come out a very focused team.”
The conference's top 3-point defensive team, Georgia Southern allowed Charleston a season-high 57.1% shooting from distance as the Cougars converted 12-for-21 long-range field goals. Davidson ranks second in the league in 3-pointers per game (9.14), led by Stephen Curry, whose 4.2 treys per outing is fourth-best in the nation.
“It concerns me a lot because we're playing another team that can really shoot the basketball,” said Price. “We better do a better job of getting out and defending the 3-point line. We've been pretty good at it all year but we certainly weren't good at it Thursday night.”
Davidson leads the league in seven team categories and is second in five more. In the Jan. 3 meeting at Davidson, the Wildcats jumped out to an 11-0 lead and were up 21-3 after nine minutes.
“It will take a near perfect game,” Price said on what it would take to beat Davidson. “They don't have any bad spells. They're going to come at us for 40 minutes and if we don't match (for) 40 minutes we're going to have problems.”
A win over Davidson would give Georgia Southern some much-needed momentum heading into the SoCon Tournament next week.
“There's certainly some things that we know we have to get better at going into the Tournament, but with one day of preparation there's not a whole lot we can do,” said Price. “We've just got to get ready for Davidson and we'll take care of some things we need to get better at next week.”
Foremost on the mind of the GSU defense is stopping Curry. The sophomore is fifth nationally in scoring (25.0), fourth in 3-pointers and eighth in free throw percentage (90.0). He went for 24 points and a season-high 10 rebounds against the Eagles Jan. 3.
“I think you just have to stay close to him and that's not easy to do because they set so many screens for him,” said Price.
Thursday freshman Willie Powers and senior Anthony Marshall paced the Eagle offense with 18 points each. For Powers, it was his highest point total since putting up 23 against Charleston on Jan. 10 (a span on 15 games) and Marshall set a new career high.
Live stats, video and audio for the game will be available at www.GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com. Tip-off will be at 7:30 p.m.
The Hanner Fieldhouse gates will open two hours early (5:30 p.m.) to help accomodate all ticket requests and students.
Georgia Southern (20-10, 13-6) will be aiming to spoil Davidson's (22-6, 19-0) perfect Southern Conference season. The Wildcats have won 18 in a row and have not lost in the 2008 calendar year.
GSU has dropped its last two games, both on the road: at Austin Peay and at Charleston. The loss at CofC ended a six-game conference winning streak.
“I think like any time you have to learn from your mistakes, but you've got to put the game behind you,” said GSU head coach Jeff Price. “Saturday's a huge game for us, obviously. We know we're going to have to play extremely well to give ourselves a chance to win and hopefully we'll come out a very focused team.”
The conference's top 3-point defensive team, Georgia Southern allowed Charleston a season-high 57.1% shooting from distance as the Cougars converted 12-for-21 long-range field goals. Davidson ranks second in the league in 3-pointers per game (9.14), led by Stephen Curry, whose 4.2 treys per outing is fourth-best in the nation.
“It concerns me a lot because we're playing another team that can really shoot the basketball,” said Price. “We better do a better job of getting out and defending the 3-point line. We've been pretty good at it all year but we certainly weren't good at it Thursday night.”
Davidson leads the league in seven team categories and is second in five more. In the Jan. 3 meeting at Davidson, the Wildcats jumped out to an 11-0 lead and were up 21-3 after nine minutes.
“It will take a near perfect game,” Price said on what it would take to beat Davidson. “They don't have any bad spells. They're going to come at us for 40 minutes and if we don't match (for) 40 minutes we're going to have problems.”
A win over Davidson would give Georgia Southern some much-needed momentum heading into the SoCon Tournament next week.
“There's certainly some things that we know we have to get better at going into the Tournament, but with one day of preparation there's not a whole lot we can do,” said Price. “We've just got to get ready for Davidson and we'll take care of some things we need to get better at next week.”
Foremost on the mind of the GSU defense is stopping Curry. The sophomore is fifth nationally in scoring (25.0), fourth in 3-pointers and eighth in free throw percentage (90.0). He went for 24 points and a season-high 10 rebounds against the Eagles Jan. 3.
“I think you just have to stay close to him and that's not easy to do because they set so many screens for him,” said Price.
Thursday freshman Willie Powers and senior Anthony Marshall paced the Eagle offense with 18 points each. For Powers, it was his highest point total since putting up 23 against Charleston on Jan. 10 (a span on 15 games) and Marshall set a new career high.
Live stats, video and audio for the game will be available at www.GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com. Tip-off will be at 7:30 p.m.
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