Eagles Return Home to Face Davidson
1/16/2009 5:23:00 AM | Men's Basketball
STATESBORO,
There will be no tickets available for sale to the general public on Saturday. Gates will open at 1:30 p.m. Chris Blair and Frank Kerns will call the action in Eagle 102.9 FM and via the internet at www.GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com with the pregame show starting 30 minutes prior to tip.
Georgia Southern (5-8 overall, 3-2 SoCon) is coming off a 72-63 win Thursday night at UNC Greensboro. That capped a streak of three straight road games, however, the Eagles will travel to North Division leader Western Carolina on Monday night.
Tyler Troupe and Ben Drayton III paced the offense each scoring career-highs in the win over the Spartans. Troupe scored a game-high 23 points (16 in the second half) and Drayton hit four 3-point field goals, part of his 21 point outing. Troupe grabbed a team-high eight rebounds while Drayton dished out five assists to one turnover in a season-high 35 minutes.
Head coach Jeff Price thinks Thursday night's road conference win helped build the team's confidence heading into Saturday.
“It (the win) gives us a push of confidence coming in. The biggest positive was to see two guys play really well (Troupe and Drayton) and step up. I thought A.J. (Antoine Johnson) played well and Anthony (Marshall) gave us good minutes. When Julian (Allen) and Antonio (Hanson) struggled in a game like that it was good to see others step up,” said Price.
Hanson leads the scoring attack at 12.4 points per game with Allen right behind at 11.9 and a team-leading 6.9 rebounds.
Price thinks the anticipated capacity crowd will help the team but they cannot rely solely on the noise.
“Anytime you have a big crowd, there's going to be an adrenaline push but the adrenaline will only last so long then you have to go to work. I think we will probably get a push and obviously we will need them to help us throughout the game, but we are going to have to play extremely well,” said Price.
The South Division leading Wildcats enter 13-3 overall and 6-0 in league play. Davidson has won 36 straight SoCon regular season games and 44 of its last 45. Led by All-America guard Stephen Curry, he continues to lead the country scoring 29.1 points per game, is tied for eighth averaging 6.8 assists and tied for fifth with 3.1 steals.
Curry is shooting 46.3 percent from the field and recorded 105 assists to just 64 turnovers. Andrew Lovedale is also scoring in double-figures at 12.1 points while leading in rebounding at 8.7 caroms per game. Davidson has won five of its last six, the only loss a 79-67 decision at second-ranked Duke. The Wildcats' only losses came at Oklahoma, Purdue (in Indianapolis, IN) and Duke, all nationally-ranked opponents.
“They're a good team and obviously everyone knows how good of a player Curry is. But they have so many good components around him that I don't think you can go in with the mentality that we're going to completely stop him. Davidson has proven even if Curry has average games or below average games they can still win,” said Price.
