STATESBORO, GA. – After playing seven of their last eight games at home, Georgia Southern Men's Basketball travels to face Appalachian State on Thursday night. The Eagles took an 83-46 win over the Mountaineers to open the run of home games back on January 29th, and face the Mountaineers for a second time starting at 7:30 p.m.

The Eagles are in first place at 12-4 in Sun Belt play, tied with UL Monroe and Georgia State for the top spot. The Eagles control their own destiny, and can claim the top-seed for the Sun Belt Tournament by winning out. The 2015 Sun Belt Tournament will be played at the Lakefront Center in New Orleans, La. starting on March 11th.

DATE: Thursday, February 26th, 2015
TIME: 7:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Holmes Convocation Center
VIDEO STREAMING: AppStateSports.com
RADIO: Georgia Southern Sports Network from Learfield Sports
Play-by-Play – Chris Blair - @CSBRadio
Analyst – AJ Henderson - @AJHenderson_SID
Metter/Swainsboro – 103.7 WMBZ-FM
Savannah/Hilton Head/Brunswick – 102.1 WZAT-FM
Jessup – 1370 WLOP-AM
Worldwide – GS All-Access (Free)
LIVE STATS: AppStateSports.com
TWITTER UPDATES: @GSAthletics_MBB 

SERIES HISTORY: GS Trails 18-25 (W1) (44th Meeting)
LAST MEETING: 1-29-2015 | Statesboro | Win | 83-46

GEORGIA SOUTHERN EAGLES (19-6, 12-4 Sun Belt)
Schedule/Results | Roster | Stats | Media Guide | Game Notes

APPALACHIAN STATE MOUNTAINEERS (9-16, 6-10 Sun Belt)
Schedule/Results | Roster | Stats | Media Guide | Game Notes

TOURNAMENT TICKETS ON SALE NOW
All-session ticket books to this year's Sun Belt Basketball Championships March 11-15, in New Orleans are available for $99 at the Georgia Southern Ticket Office. Call 1-800-GSU-WINS!

EAGLES ROUT MOUNTAINEERS
Georgia Southern improved to 8-0 at home this season on Jan. 29th with a rout of rival Appalachian State. The Eagles took the 83-46 win over the Mountaineers for the program's biggest win by margin over a D-I opponent since 11-12-2006 when the Eagles took a 116-73 win over UC Davis at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

GS IN CONTROL OF ITS DESTINY
With four games remaining in the regular season, Georgia Southern controls its own destiny in the race for the Sun Belt Regular Season Championship and the top-seed for the tournament. With four wins, the Eagles would, at worst, clinch a tie with ULM for first place, but the Eagles would have the tiebreaker thanks wins over Georgia State (in this situation). The complete tiebreaker breakdown is on the final page of these game notes.

JELANI SETS TWO SCHOOL RECORDS
Jelani Hewitt has earned a pair of career school records at Georgia Southern, winning the steals (238) and free throws (366) records. He needs just three more baskets from downtown to claim the career three-pointers record, besting Terry Williams and Elton Nesbitt (262).

FIRST SELLOUT SINCE 2009
Georgia Southern posted its first sellout since 1-17-2009 in the UL Lafayette game. The Eagles took a 78-70 win over the Ragin' Cajuns to move into first place in the Sun Belt with the victory in front of 4,325 fans, the seventh-highest total in Hanner Fieldhouse history.

HEWITT MOVES INTO TOP-10
Jelani Hewitt continued his move up the Georgia Southern career scoring chart, moving into the top-10 in the win over South Alabama on January 10th. He has 1,732 career points and passed Elton Nesbitt for sixth place on February 21st. He needs 111 more points to match Kevin Anderson's (1975-79) total of 1,843 career points in fifth place.

FEWEST POINTS ALLOWED SINCE 1987
Georgia Southern's 40-36 win over Texas State was the fewest points allowed by the Eagle defense since a 67-34 win over Savannah State on December 5th, 1987. It was the first 40-36 game in the shot clock (Division I) era, ranks in a tie for 19th lowest scoring game for both teams combined, and the lowest scoring Sun Belt game in the shot clock era. The contest is the lowest combined scoring game since January 14th, 1950 when J.B. Searce's Eagles defeated the Erskine Flying Fleet 39-36.

ALL AROUND THE WORLD
The Eagles will travel 12,283 miles in the 30 games scheduled for the 2014-15 schedule. That total is just 168 miles less than halfway around the Earth. Georgia Southern's farthest games away from home last season, played in Cancun (840 mi.), are closer than two of the Eagles' opponents at Texas State (971 mi.) and UT Arlington (893 mi.).

Season miles to date..................................9,545 mi.
Statesboro to Boone......................................260 mi.
Boone to Lafayette.........................................727 mi.
Boone to Lafayette........................................623 mi.
Trip Total.......................... ............................1,610 mi.
Season miles to date..................................9,545 mi.
2014-15 total season mileage................12,283 mi.
2013-14 total season mileage...................9.216 mi.

BLUE WHITE WEEKLY BACK FOR 2015
Blue-White Weekly, the weekly television show about Georgia Southern Athletics is back for the 2014-15 basketball seasons. Fans can watch the show on Fox-28 Savannah on Monday nights at 6 p.m. The show can also be seen on GS All-Accss at GSEagles.com each week before it airs on Monday.
 
THE COACH
Head Coach Mark Byington enters this game with a 41-29 career record with a 34-25 mark at Georgia Southern in his second season in Statesboro.

THE WEATHER
Snow showers Wednesday night will drop 4-7 inches of snow across the high country by morning. Thursday's high temperature is 33 degrees with more snow expected for the evening.

UP NEXT
Georgia Southern visits UL Lafayette on Saturday night for a 8:15 p.m (ET) game against the Ragin' Cajuns.

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 and twitter.com/GSAthletics. To purchase tickets call 1-800-GSU-WINS.