Men's Basketball | 2/10/2017 2:02:00 PM

Georgia Southern (16-8, 9-2) at Coastal Carolina (11-13, 6-5)
Saturday, Feb. 11 - HTC Center (3,212) – Conway, S.C. - 4:30 p.m.
Live Video | Live Audio  | Live Stats
Radio: WMCD 107.3 FM (Statesboro), 105.5 FM WIFO (Jesup), 100.9 FM WLYU (Lyons), 103.7 FM WBMZ (Metter), 900 AM WJLG (Savannah)
Series Record: GS trails 4-1, W1
Last meeting: W, 91-80, 1/23/17 (Hanner)
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]

Coastal Carolina Information:
[Stats] [Roster] [Schedule]

Setting the Scene
• Georgia Southern travels to Coastal Carolina for a 4:30 p.m. contest Saturday.
• This road trip starts a stretch in which the Eagles close the regular season by playing five of seven on the road.
• It's the second meeting of the season against the Chanticleers. The Eagles won the first contest 91-80 in Hanner Fieldhouse back on Jan. 23.
• It's the first time the Eagles have played at Coastal Carolina since 2009 and the first time the Eagles will play in the HTC Center.  
• GS is 3-2 in its last five and coming off a 74-70 home win over Louisiana Monday night. GS is 12-3 in its last 15 contests.
• Georgia Southern is 5-7 on the road this season and 2-2 in road league games.
• The Eagles are tied with Georgia State and Arkansas State for first place in the Sun Belt.
• Georgia Southern features the Sun Belt's top two scorers in sophomores Ike Smith (19.4 ppg) and Tookie Brown (18.0 ppg). They were the third-highest freshman scoring duo in the country last year (1-Rice's Marcus Evans and Marquez Letcher-Ellis, 2- FSU's Dwayne Bacon and Malik Beasley).
• Coastal Carolina is 2-3 in its last five and coming off a 67-57 setback at Arkansas State Monday night.
• The Chanticleers are 8-5 at home and 4-1 in home league games. 
• Three of Coastal Carolina's home league games have been decided by three points or less, including the last two.
• Coastal leads the Sun Belt in total rebounds and rebounds per game.
• The Chanticleers are sixth in the Sun Belt, two games out of fourth. The top-four teams receive a bye in the conference tournament.
• With 802 career wins, Chanticleer head coach Cliff Ellis ranks fourth among active coaches in Division I and is the only coach to record 170 wins or more at four Division I schools.

The Series vs. Coastal Carolina
• Georgia Southern trails the all-time series, which began in 1995, 4-1, and before this year, the teams had not met since 2009.
• This will be the teams' second meeting as members of the Sun Belt Conference. The Eagles won the first matchup 91-80 Jan. 23, in Hanner Fieldhouse.
• The Eagles are 1-2 against the Chanticleers in Hanner Fieldhouse and 0-2 on the road.
• Before the Chants joined the Sun Belt, all four meetings were part of home-and-home series in the same season.

More Team Storylines
• Georgia Southern has no seniors in its rotation and starts three sophomores and two juniors. Walk-ons James Holder and Dominique Bullock are the team's lone seniors.
• GS is averaging 78.8 points a game this season, the most since the 2004-05 campaign, when the Eagles scored at an 80.8 clip. The Eagles have scored over 80 12 times, including six straight games from 12/20-1/14, and have scored over 90 five times, including two in a row Jan. 21 and 23. It's the first time the Eagles scored 90-plus points in back-to-back Division I games since Feb. 11 and Feb. 13, 2006.
• Georgia Southern ranks 55th nationally and second in the Sun Belt in fewest turnovers and ranks 41st nationally and first in the SBC in turnovers per game. The Eagles have logged single-digit turnovers in six games and posted a season-low six vs. Troy (1/7).
• The Eagles are off to their best start in league play since the 2014-15 season. The Eagles started 7-0 in league play for the first time since the 1991-92 season. GS won its first nine games in the Trans America Athletic Conference that year. 
• GS posted an eight-game win streak from Dec. 2-Jan. 23. It's the Eagles' longest since the 2005-06 season. 
• Three Eagles have been named Sun Belt Player of the Week - Tookie Brown (Jan. 3), Ike Smith (Jan. 24) and Mike Hughes (Feb. 7).
• GS is ranked 18th in this week's CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top-25.
• Georgia Southern's top-3 seasons in 3-pointers made and attempted have all come during Mark Byington's tenure. GS ranks first in the SBC in threes per game (9.3) this season, and the Eagles have made 10 or more threes 12 times.
• The Eagles won their first two conference road games for the first time since the 2002-03 season.
• GS is 12-3 since changing its starting lineup following an 86-49 loss at Minnesota Dec. 9.
• The Eagles have shot 50 percent or better in a half in 18 games this season, including 60 percent or better twice. The Eagles have shot 50 percent or better in both halves of a game twice (GSU, 12/31 and CCU, 1/23). The Eagles have shot 50 percent or better in five games. 
• GS ranks second in the Sun Belt in free throws. The Eagles have attempted 30-plus free throws in five games and made 20-plus free throws in six contests.
• GS has a combined record of 32-13 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.
• Georgia Southern returned all five starters and 11 lettermen from last season's squad. Ninety-four percent of the Eagles' scoring and rebounding is back in uniform.
• Georgia Southern was picked fourth in the Sun Belt Preseason Coaches Poll, Tookie Brown was named preseason first-team all-league and Mike Hughes earned second-team honors.
• Mark Byington is coaching in his 132nd career game today and his 121st at Georgia Southern. His 51 wins in his first three seasons at Georgia Southern are the best of any coach in the modern era. He posted a 7-4 record at College of Charleston in 2012, filling in as the interim coach for Bobby Cremins.
• Under Mark Byington, Georgia Southern is 46-8 in games when leading at half and 56-4 when leading with five minutes to go.
• Georgia Southern is 32-7 in Hanner Fieldhouse in its last 39 contests there and 39-13 under Mark Byington.
• Since joining the Sun Belt in 2014, 25 Georgia Southern games against Sun Belt schools have been decided by five points or less, and the Eagles are 18-7.
• The Eagles are 24-2 in Sun Belt games when leading at halftime. GS is 25-0 when leading with five minutes to go.
• Georgia Southern's comeback from 16 points down at ULM (1/16) is the Eagles' largest since a 17-point rally vs. UTA March 5, 2015.
• 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 - 41, FGCU - 92, Minn - 23, NC State - 95, Winthrop - 84).
• 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.
• 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.

Talking 1K
• A trio of underclassmen are nearing the 1,000-point mark for their careers. Junior Mike Hughes has 928 points, sophomore Tookie Brown has 982 and sophomore Ike Smith has 816.
• No Eagle in the program's modern era has reached the mark as a sophomore. Two Eagles did it in their second seasons at Georgia Southern (Elton Nesbitt and Johnny Mills).
• Three Eagles reached the mark in the same season once. Nesbitt, Terry Williams and Jean Francois scored their 1,000th point in 2004-05.
• The 2004-05 trio and Jelani Hewitt, Eric Ferguson and Trent Wiedeman in 2014-15 are the only times Georgia Southern had three 1,000-point scorers on the same team (Wiedeman scored 886 points at College of Charleston before transferring to GS).

Next Up
• The Eagles travel to longtime rival Appalachian State for a Sun Belt Conference contest Monday.

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