Men's Basketball | 3/14/2017 11:59:00 AM

Georgia Southern (18-14) vs. Utah Valley (15-16) - College Basketball Invitational presented by FIVE FOUR
Wednesday, March 15 - Hanner Fieldhouse (3,897) – Statesboro, Ga. - 7 p.m.
Video: NONE
Buy Tickets | Ticket Info | Live Audio  | Live Stats | Bracket | CBI
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: First meeting
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]

Utah Valley Information:
[Stats] [Roster] [Schedule]

Setting the Scene
• Georgia Southern makes its seventh postseason appearance in the Division I era and first since 2006, as the Eagles accepted a bid to the College Basketball Invitational presented by FIVE FOUR.
• Georgia Southern will open the tournament by hosting Utah Valley Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Hanner Fieldhouse. Georgia Southern has not won a postseason game in the Division I era.
• The winner advances to the quarterfinal round, where they will face the winner of Rice vs. San Francisco Monday, March 20, at a time and location to be determined.
• Lower reserved, upper reserved and general admission seating are all $10 per ticket, and courtside seats are $20 each. All parking will be free and first come, first served for everyone.
• The student section will be in section C, and the first 100 students get in free with a valid ID. Students will need to come to one of the ticket windows at Hanner Fieldhouse with their valid student ID in order to obtain a ticket.
• There will be no live video coverage of the contest - the only way to see it is to be in Hanner Fieldhouse.
• In an effort to assist the NCAA in its research, the CBI presented by FIVE FOUR will utilize recent experimental playing rules adopted by the 2017 NIT, including resetting team fouls to zero at the end of 10-minute segments of each half and resetting the shot clock to 20 seconds instead of 30 seconds at times when the ball is inbounded in the front court.
• GS posted a 25-15 mark in NAIB, NAIA and NCAA Division II Tournaments, giving the Eagles a 25-21 all-time postseason record.
• Georgia Southern and Utah Valley have never met on the hardwood, and the Eagles have never defeated a WAC team.
• GS is 1-4 in its last five, has lost its last three and is coming off a 90-70 loss to eventual champion Troy in the quarterfinal round of the Sun Belt Tournament last Friday in New Orleans. 
• Georgia Southern features the Sun Belt's top two scorers in sophomores Ike Smith (19.9 ppg) and Tookie Brown (17.4 ppg). The 2017 first-team All-Sun Belt selections 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).
• Junior Mike Hughes is six points away from reaching 1,000 for his career, and Smith is 12 points shy of the milestone. Brown reached it against Appalachian State Feb. 13.
• Georgia Southern is 10-2 at home this season and has won nine of 10 in Hanner Fieldhouse. The Eagles are 40-14 under head coach Mark Byington in the facility.
• The bid to play in the CBI marks Utah Valley's third appearance in a postseason national tournament in the last six seasons. The Wolverines played in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) against California in 2014 and in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) against Weber State in 2012.
• Utah Valley advanced to the semifinals of the WAC conference tournament. The Wolverines are the 10th-fastest team in the nation according to KenPom.com at 73.8 possessions per 40 minutes. 
• The Wolverines are 4-1 in their last five and coming off an historic quadruple overtime 81-80 setback to CSU Bakersfield in the semifinals of the WAC Tournament in Las Vegas last Friday.

More Team Storylines
• Georgia Southern has no seniors in its rotation and starts two juniors and three sophomores. Walk-ons James Holder and Dominique Bullock are the team's lone seniors.
• 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 (9.4) and 27th in the country this season, and the Eagles have made 10 or more threes 15 times. GS's .370 percentage from long distance is the seventh-highest in school history.
• Georgia Southern ranks second in the Sun Belt in fewest turnovers and  turnovers per game. The Eagles have logged single-digit turnovers in nine games and posted a season-low six vs. Troy (1/7).
• Ike Smith and Tookie Brown were named first-team All-Sun Belt. Brown earned first-team accolades for the second straight season.
• The Eagles started 7-0 in league play for the first time since the 1991-92 campaign. 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 were named Sun Belt Player of the Week - Tookie Brown (Jan. 3), Ike Smith (Jan. 24) and Mike Hughes (Feb. 7).
• GS is averaging 76.3 points a game this season. 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.
• The Eagles won their first two conference road games for the first time since the 2002-03 season.
• The Eagles have shot 50 percent or better in a half in 21 games this season, including 60 percent or better three times. 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 six games. 
• GS ranks third in the Sun Belt in made free throws and in free-throw attempts. The Eagles have attempted 30-plus free throws in six games and made 20-plus free throws in seven contests.
• GS has a combined record of 34-17 in Sun Belt games played in January and February since joining the league in 2014-15.
• 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 140th career game today and his 129th 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 48-11 in games when leading at half and 58-5 when leading with five minutes to go.
• Georgia Southern is 33-8 in Hanner Fieldhouse in its last 41 contests there and 40-14 under Mark Byington.
• GS has reached double digit wins in conference play in each of its three seasons in the Sun Belt. The Eagles have finished in the top-3 in the league standings twice.
• Since joining the Sun Belt in 2014, 29 Georgia Southern games against Sun Belt schools have been decided by five points or less, and the Eagles are 19-10.
• The Eagles are 26-5 in Sun Belt games when leading at halftime. GS is 27-1 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 five non-conference games against five teams that are currently in the top-100 in the NCAA RPI (Akron - 58, FGCU - 85 (twice), Minn - 20, Winthrop - 70). FGCU and Winthrop won their league tournaments and earned spots in the NCAA Tournament. Sun Belt regular-season champ UTA owns an RPI of 45 and was selected to the NIT along with Akron.
• Georgia Southern's NCAA RPI of 122 is the second-highest in the last 27 seasons (111 in 2015).
• 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.

Talking 1K
• Sophomore Tookie Brown scored his 1,000th career point at Appalachian State Feb. 13. 
• He is the first Eagle in the program's modern era to reach the mark as a sophomore. Two Eagles did it in their second seasons at Georgia Southern (Elton Nesbitt and Johnny Mills).
• Junior Mike Hughes has 994 points, and sophomore Ike Smith has 988.
• 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).

About the CBI
• The CBI presented by FIVE FOUR, which began in 2008 and is celebrating its 10th anniversary, is a single-elimination tournament up until the Championship Series. The event features eight first-round games, four quarterfinal round games, a semifinal round, and then a best-of-three Championship Series. The 16-team field consists of teams not selected for the NCAA Tournament. Teams are invited based upon performance during their conference and non-conference schedules.
• The 2017 CBI will begin Wednesday, March 15, and end with a best-of-three Championship Series that begins Monday, March 27, and will be televised live on ESPNU. The Quarterfinal Round will take place Monday, March 20, with Semifinal Round games being played Wednesday, March 22. Prior to the semifinals, the remaining teams will be re-bracketed. The Finals series is a best-of-three in which one team will host two of the three games. Those games will be played on March 27, March 29, and March 31.
• The CBI has a long, distinguished history of teams that advanced to the NCAA Tournament in the season following their appearance in the tournament. Twenty-eight teams have used the CBI to springboard to the NCAA Tournament the following year, while another 17 have gone on to the NIT.
• Nevada won the 2016 title and is 28-6 and won the Mountain West title to punch their ticket in the NCAA Tournament this year. VCU won the 2010 CBI and advanced to the Final Four the next season, and Morehead State played in the 2010 CBI and the next year had the greatest season in school history.

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, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. For tickets to Georgia Southern athletics events, visit GSEagles.com/tickets.