Men's Basketball Season Review: Seniors Rewrite the Record Books
3/20/2019 9:41:00 AM | Men's Basketball
GS is set up for another run in 2019-20.
Led by seniors Tookie Brown and Montae Glenn, the Eagles posted 20 wins in consecutive seasons for the first time in 30 years, and Georgia Southern now has three 20-win seasons in the last five years. Below is a look at some of the highlights from 2018-19.
The seniors
GS says farewell to a pair of four-year starters in Tookie Brown and Montae Glenn. Brown was named Sun Belt Player of the Year and first-team all-conference and is the first player in league history to earn first-team all-conference accolades all four years. He is the first Eagle to be named conference Player of the Year since Elton Nesbitt in 2006 (Southern), and it's the sixth time an Eagle has been named conference Player of the Year. Brown was named Sun Belt Player of the Week twice and earned MVP honors at the Islands of the Bahamas Showcase.
The only player in Sun Belt history with over 2,000 points and 500 assists, Brown ranks fourth on the Sun Belt career scoring list, ninth in assists and 19th in steals. He finishes his career at Georgia Southern as the all-time leader in Division I scoring (2,290 points), games played (129), games started (125) and free throws (608). He also ranks in the top-10 in career field goals (4th - 741), assists (3rd - 526), steals (3rd - 197), free-throw percentage (6th - .773), 3-point percentage (6th - .375) and 3-pointers made (9th - 200).
Glenn shot 62 percent from the field this season, the second-highest in a season in school history, and his career shooting percentage of .586 ranks first in school history. He finishes his career ranked fifth in blocked shots (500), eighth in rebounds (723) and 15th in games played (118). Glenn was named all-tournament at the Islands of the Bahamas Showcase.
Jackson Named All-Sun Belt
Redshirt sophomore Quan Jackson was named third-team All-Sun Belt and averaged 14.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals while shooting 44 percent from the field, making a team high 47 3-pointers and shooting 73.6 percent from the free-throw line.
Crunching the numbers
Georgia Southern has an RPI of 76, the lowest in school history. It's just the second time GS has finished a season with an RPI lower than 100, and four of the Eagles' seven lowest RPIs have come in the last five seasons.
High-Flying Eagles
GS ranks fifth in the country in field goal percentage (.499) and 16th in scoring, averaging 82.6 points a game. The shooting percentage is the fifth-highest in program history and the best since the 1988-89 campaign. The scoring average is the fourth-best in program history and the highest since the 1991-92 season.
The Eagles scored 80-plus 18 times, 90-plus seven times and over 100 three times. GS shot 50 percent or better in 17 contests, including the first five games of the year, and 60 percent or better three times.
The Eagles shot 60 percent or better in a half 12 times, 70 percent or better twice and shot 77.8 percent in the second half against George Mason, the highest since making 80.8 percent in the second half against UIC Nov. 28, 2005. The Eagles shot 61 percent for the game at Troy (1/17), their highest against a Division I opponent since the aforementioned 89-69 win over UIC in Hanner Fieldhouse, and shot 60.8 percent against Arkansas State (3/2).
Montae Glenn (2nd, .620), Simeon Carter (7th, .582) and Isaiah Crawley (11th, .563) all had shooting percentages this season that rank in the top-11 in school history.
Putting the season in Perspective
• The last time GS won 20 games two years in a row was in 1987-88 (24-7) and 1988-89 (22-6).
• After tying for second in the Sun Belt standings, the Eagles have finished in the top-3 in four of their five seasons in the league.
• GS, UTA and Louisiana are the only Sun Belt schools to reach double-digit conference wins in each of the last five seasons.
• Only 38 Division I programs have won 10 or more league games in each of the past five seasons, a list that includes Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, Villanova, Michigan State, Kentucky, Oregon and Gonzaga.
• The Eagles have notched 22 wins away from home (road and neutral site) in the last two seasons and notched 11 this year, posting a 6-3 record in road Sun Belt games. The most wins away from home in a season in school history is 12 in 1988-89.
• GS started 5-0 for the second straight season. The last time the Eagles started the campaign 5-0 in consecutive years was in the 1949-50 and 1950-51 seasons.
Tough Slate
GS finished the non-conference portion of its schedule with an 8-5 record, and the slate is rated the 19th most difficult in the country in the latest edition of the NCAA Net (through games March 17), making it the most difficult in the Sun Belt. Twenty of the Eagles' games this year were against teams with a net rating under 170, and the Eagles notched victories over NCAA Tournament participants Bradley and Montana. The Eagles opened the Sun Belt schedule at Texas State Jan. 3, marking the fourth time in their five seasons in the conference that they opened the league schedule on the road.
The Injury Bug
After missing 23 contests with an injury, senior Ike Smith will seek a medical hardship waiver to regain a year of eligibility. Smith, who has amassed 1,480 career points and 492 rebounds, played in the first 10 games of the season and averaged 14.7 points and 5.7 boards for the Eagles, and Georgia Southern went 13-9 after his injury. Injuries kept Georgia Southern from having its full roster available for any game this season, and three opening day starters missed a combined 28 contests.
Coach B
Mark Byington became the fifth coach to win 100 games at Georgia Southern when the Eagles defeated ULM 79-78 on a buzzer-beating Quan Jackson 3-pointer Jan. 10. His win total in his first six seasons at Georgia Southern is the best of any coach in the modern era.
Enjoying the Island Life
The Eagles' 80-77 win over Montana Nov. 18 in the Islands of the Bahamas showcase championship game was the Eagles' first in-season tournament title since winning the Islander Classic in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2003. Georgia Southern won three games in three days despite losing Jackson, who was the team's leading scorer at the time, late in the opening game of the weekend, and starting forward Isaiah Crawley missed the second half of the championship game with an injury.
A Look Ahead
The Eagles are set to return 68 percent of their scoring and 69 percent of their rebounding in 2019-20. Smith, who was a preseason All-Sun Belt selection, enters the year ranked 13th on the school's career Division I scoring list. He needs 21 points and eight rebounds to become the fifth Eagle with 1,500 career points and 500 rebounds, joining Jeff Sanders (1,861 pts, 893 reb), Kevin Anderson (1,843 pts, 986 reb), Matt Simpkins (1,684 pts, 642 reb) and Louis Graham (1,581 pts, 908 reb).
David Viti and Will Dillard will make their Eagle debuts as redshirt freshmen, while Trevion Lamar (Savannah, Ga./Jenkins/Northern Oklahoma), Mackenzie McFatten (Douglas, Ga./Coffee) and Jalen Cincore (Bartlett, Tenn./Bartlett) signed National Letters of Intent to attend Georgia Southern last fall and will be eligible to compete next year.
The schedule
The Eagles renewed a long-time series with local rival Mercer, who is set to visit Hanner Fieldhouse next season, along with Radford, which shared the Big South regular-season title. Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina will visit Statesboro for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign as part of home-and-home Sun Belt series.
The Sun Belt adopted a 20-game smart schedule format last June with the aim of matching the conference's top teams against each other several times. The goal of the scheduling format is to boost teams' NCAA NET Rankings and other important factors taken into consideration by the NCAA Men's Basketball Committee used to help select and seed teams in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship.
The conference will split into two divisions (East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama and Troy; West: Little Rock, Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, UTA and Texas State). Each team will play a 16-game schedule with five home and five away games against divisional opponents and three home and three away games against non-divisional opponents. Based on the results of those 16 games, teams will be ranked 1 through 12 and placed in four pods – Pod A (#1, #2, #3), Pod B (#4, #5, #6), Pod C (#7, #8, #9) and Pod D (#10, #11, #12). Each team will play the other two pod members once at home and once away for the final four games of the 20-game schedule. The pod schedule is slated to begin on Saturday, Feb. 22 and conclude on Wednesday, March 3.
Teams will be seeded for the 2020 Sun Belt Men's Basketball Championship based on the results within their pod. For example, a team in Pod A (#1, #2, #3) cannot be seeded lower than the No. 3 seed. However, it is possible, that the regular-season champion would not be the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament should that team not have the best pod record. The regular-season champion will be awarded based on the results of the full 20-game conference schedule.
The seniors
GS says farewell to a pair of four-year starters in Tookie Brown and Montae Glenn. Brown was named Sun Belt Player of the Year and first-team all-conference and is the first player in league history to earn first-team all-conference accolades all four years. He is the first Eagle to be named conference Player of the Year since Elton Nesbitt in 2006 (Southern), and it's the sixth time an Eagle has been named conference Player of the Year. Brown was named Sun Belt Player of the Week twice and earned MVP honors at the Islands of the Bahamas Showcase.
The only player in Sun Belt history with over 2,000 points and 500 assists, Brown ranks fourth on the Sun Belt career scoring list, ninth in assists and 19th in steals. He finishes his career at Georgia Southern as the all-time leader in Division I scoring (2,290 points), games played (129), games started (125) and free throws (608). He also ranks in the top-10 in career field goals (4th - 741), assists (3rd - 526), steals (3rd - 197), free-throw percentage (6th - .773), 3-point percentage (6th - .375) and 3-pointers made (9th - 200).
Glenn shot 62 percent from the field this season, the second-highest in a season in school history, and his career shooting percentage of .586 ranks first in school history. He finishes his career ranked fifth in blocked shots (500), eighth in rebounds (723) and 15th in games played (118). Glenn was named all-tournament at the Islands of the Bahamas Showcase.
Jackson Named All-Sun Belt
Redshirt sophomore Quan Jackson was named third-team All-Sun Belt and averaged 14.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals while shooting 44 percent from the field, making a team high 47 3-pointers and shooting 73.6 percent from the free-throw line.
Crunching the numbers
Georgia Southern has an RPI of 76, the lowest in school history. It's just the second time GS has finished a season with an RPI lower than 100, and four of the Eagles' seven lowest RPIs have come in the last five seasons.
High-Flying Eagles
GS ranks fifth in the country in field goal percentage (.499) and 16th in scoring, averaging 82.6 points a game. The shooting percentage is the fifth-highest in program history and the best since the 1988-89 campaign. The scoring average is the fourth-best in program history and the highest since the 1991-92 season.
The Eagles scored 80-plus 18 times, 90-plus seven times and over 100 three times. GS shot 50 percent or better in 17 contests, including the first five games of the year, and 60 percent or better three times.
The Eagles shot 60 percent or better in a half 12 times, 70 percent or better twice and shot 77.8 percent in the second half against George Mason, the highest since making 80.8 percent in the second half against UIC Nov. 28, 2005. The Eagles shot 61 percent for the game at Troy (1/17), their highest against a Division I opponent since the aforementioned 89-69 win over UIC in Hanner Fieldhouse, and shot 60.8 percent against Arkansas State (3/2).
Montae Glenn (2nd, .620), Simeon Carter (7th, .582) and Isaiah Crawley (11th, .563) all had shooting percentages this season that rank in the top-11 in school history.
Putting the season in Perspective
• The last time GS won 20 games two years in a row was in 1987-88 (24-7) and 1988-89 (22-6).
• After tying for second in the Sun Belt standings, the Eagles have finished in the top-3 in four of their five seasons in the league.
• GS, UTA and Louisiana are the only Sun Belt schools to reach double-digit conference wins in each of the last five seasons.
• Only 38 Division I programs have won 10 or more league games in each of the past five seasons, a list that includes Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, Villanova, Michigan State, Kentucky, Oregon and Gonzaga.
• The Eagles have notched 22 wins away from home (road and neutral site) in the last two seasons and notched 11 this year, posting a 6-3 record in road Sun Belt games. The most wins away from home in a season in school history is 12 in 1988-89.
• GS started 5-0 for the second straight season. The last time the Eagles started the campaign 5-0 in consecutive years was in the 1949-50 and 1950-51 seasons.
Tough Slate
GS finished the non-conference portion of its schedule with an 8-5 record, and the slate is rated the 19th most difficult in the country in the latest edition of the NCAA Net (through games March 17), making it the most difficult in the Sun Belt. Twenty of the Eagles' games this year were against teams with a net rating under 170, and the Eagles notched victories over NCAA Tournament participants Bradley and Montana. The Eagles opened the Sun Belt schedule at Texas State Jan. 3, marking the fourth time in their five seasons in the conference that they opened the league schedule on the road.
The Injury Bug
After missing 23 contests with an injury, senior Ike Smith will seek a medical hardship waiver to regain a year of eligibility. Smith, who has amassed 1,480 career points and 492 rebounds, played in the first 10 games of the season and averaged 14.7 points and 5.7 boards for the Eagles, and Georgia Southern went 13-9 after his injury. Injuries kept Georgia Southern from having its full roster available for any game this season, and three opening day starters missed a combined 28 contests.
Coach B
Mark Byington became the fifth coach to win 100 games at Georgia Southern when the Eagles defeated ULM 79-78 on a buzzer-beating Quan Jackson 3-pointer Jan. 10. His win total in his first six seasons at Georgia Southern is the best of any coach in the modern era.
Enjoying the Island Life
The Eagles' 80-77 win over Montana Nov. 18 in the Islands of the Bahamas showcase championship game was the Eagles' first in-season tournament title since winning the Islander Classic in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2003. Georgia Southern won three games in three days despite losing Jackson, who was the team's leading scorer at the time, late in the opening game of the weekend, and starting forward Isaiah Crawley missed the second half of the championship game with an injury.
A Look Ahead
The Eagles are set to return 68 percent of their scoring and 69 percent of their rebounding in 2019-20. Smith, who was a preseason All-Sun Belt selection, enters the year ranked 13th on the school's career Division I scoring list. He needs 21 points and eight rebounds to become the fifth Eagle with 1,500 career points and 500 rebounds, joining Jeff Sanders (1,861 pts, 893 reb), Kevin Anderson (1,843 pts, 986 reb), Matt Simpkins (1,684 pts, 642 reb) and Louis Graham (1,581 pts, 908 reb).
David Viti and Will Dillard will make their Eagle debuts as redshirt freshmen, while Trevion Lamar (Savannah, Ga./Jenkins/Northern Oklahoma), Mackenzie McFatten (Douglas, Ga./Coffee) and Jalen Cincore (Bartlett, Tenn./Bartlett) signed National Letters of Intent to attend Georgia Southern last fall and will be eligible to compete next year.
The schedule
The Eagles renewed a long-time series with local rival Mercer, who is set to visit Hanner Fieldhouse next season, along with Radford, which shared the Big South regular-season title. Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina will visit Statesboro for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign as part of home-and-home Sun Belt series.
The Sun Belt adopted a 20-game smart schedule format last June with the aim of matching the conference's top teams against each other several times. The goal of the scheduling format is to boost teams' NCAA NET Rankings and other important factors taken into consideration by the NCAA Men's Basketball Committee used to help select and seed teams in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship.
The conference will split into two divisions (East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama and Troy; West: Little Rock, Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, UTA and Texas State). Each team will play a 16-game schedule with five home and five away games against divisional opponents and three home and three away games against non-divisional opponents. Based on the results of those 16 games, teams will be ranked 1 through 12 and placed in four pods – Pod A (#1, #2, #3), Pod B (#4, #5, #6), Pod C (#7, #8, #9) and Pod D (#10, #11, #12). Each team will play the other two pod members once at home and once away for the final four games of the 20-game schedule. The pod schedule is slated to begin on Saturday, Feb. 22 and conclude on Wednesday, March 3.
Teams will be seeded for the 2020 Sun Belt Men's Basketball Championship based on the results within their pod. For example, a team in Pod A (#1, #2, #3) cannot be seeded lower than the No. 3 seed. However, it is possible, that the regular-season champion would not be the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament should that team not have the best pod record. The regular-season champion will be awarded based on the results of the full 20-game conference schedule.
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