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3/3/2008 - MEN'S BASKETBALL
A-Sun's March to the Madness starts Wednesday
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After two years in Johnson City, Tenn., at ETSU’s Memorial Center, the General Shale Brick Atlantic Sun Men’s Basketball Championships returns to Nashville with Lipscomb’s Allen Arena serving as the venue. This year’s championship features the added twist of both the men and women competing concurrently at the same location. Also new for 2008, 13 of the 14 championship games will be available on the league’s broadband channel, ASun.TV.
In the men’s tournament, the host has not fared well recently as no school has won the tournament on its home floor since Georgia State in 2001. The host has won only one of the last nine A-Sun Men’s Championships. The Bisons have proved to be quite the force at home, winning 45 of their 51 home games in the last four seasons. Only one team has won twice at Allen Arena in that span, their first-round opponent, ETSU. Only 10 teams in the country have fewer home losses over the last four seasons than the Bisons.
Belmont, the regular season champion, won its first two General Shale Brick Atlantic Sun Men’s Basketball Championships in the last two seasons, joining UALR (1989-1990), College of Charleston (1997-98), Samford (1999-2000) and UCF (2004-05) as the five schools in league history to successfully defend its title. None of the previous four have been able to win three straight tournament titles. UALR lost in the 1991 final while Samford lost in the semifinals in 2001. College of Charleston and UCF were not in the league to try for three straight. Also working against the Bruins is the fact that the top seed has failed to capture the tournament title since 2001. In fact, the top seed has lost in the finals in each of the last four tournaments and five of the last six. The Bruins, along with nine other schools in Division I have won their league’s automatic bid each of the last two seasons.
Two years after a 1-26 season, Jacksonville finished second in the standings with a 12-4 conference mark. The 12 wins represented the most league wins in a season for the Dolphins since 2001-02, when JU went 12-8. The Dolphins also secured a second straight winning season for the first time since the 2000-01campaign. The Dolphins rallied from a non-conference season that featured an eight-game losing streak. Prior to this year, JU had never recorded a winning season in a year that featured a losing streak of at least eight games. Jacksonville dominated A-Sun play except when facing the league’s three Tennessee schools, Belmont, Lipscomb and ETSU. Against conference foes not from the Volunteer State, the Dolphins went 12-1, losing only their finale against Stetson. In their three matchups with the Tennessee schools, Jacksonville lost all three. Fortunately for the Dolphins, they will not have to face a Tennessee school until the championship game.
In the preseason poll, both the Atlantic Sun head coaches and the media predicted Stetson would finish ninth. Instead they went 11-5 and finished in a tie for third place. No other team in the conference outperformed expectations as well as the Hatters. The 11-5 A-Sun record represented the best conference record for the Hatters since posting an identical record in the 1994-95 season. Garfield Blair led his team in both scoring and rebounding, one of just three players in the A-Sun to do so, joining Campbell’s Jonathan Rodriguez and Gardner-Webb’s Thomas Sanders.
ETSU, the runner-up in the 2007 Championship will enter the 2008 edition as the number four seed. Not only will the Buccaneers have to face the host, the Lipscomb Bisons, in their first-round game, but they will also be facing history. Only once, Georgia State in 1987, has the number four seed gone on to win the title and in only two other instances has the fourth seed even advanced to the finals. The odds improve only slightly for previous years’ runner ups. Two runner-ups, UALR in 1985 and UCF in 2003 have gone from finishing second one year to winning it all the next year.
Gardner-Webb made national headlines in the opening weeks of the season with its upset of nationally-ranked Kentucky at Rupp Arena in the 2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer Classic. A pair of Runnin’ Bulldogs have remained in the news as Thomas Sanders and Grayson Flittner have attacked the A-Sun record book. Sanders led the league in rebounding at over 11 boards per game. His 336 rebounds this season rank among the top five single-seasons in league history. He needs 24 rebounds to break Centenary’s George Lett’s A-Sun record, set in the league’s first season, 1978-79. He also owns 20 double-doubles, ranking third in the NCAA. Flittner, whose scoring has increased from 4.8 to 15.4 points per game, has drained 103 3-point field goals, a Gardner-Webb record. He enters the A-Sun tournament five away from the league record, established by Campbell’s Eric Smith two seasons ago.
Last year, Mercer’s James Florence and Campbell’s Jonathan Rodriguez finished first and third, respectively, in the A-Sun in scoring. This season, Rodriguez claimed the scoring title with an average of 21.0 points per game with Florence finishing second, two points behind. Rodriguez’s average ranks as the third-highest per-game mark in the A-Sun over the last 12 seasons. During the regular season, both surpassed the 1,000-point plateau, becoming just the 18th and 19th players in league history to reach 1,000 points in two seasons. Rodriguez and Florence are members of a select group of six current sophomores across the country to have reached that milestone. Davidson’s Stephen Curry leads the second-year players with 1,465 points with Rodriguez second at 1,145 points. Florence ranks sixth, having scored 1,053 points.
The Atlantic Sun Conference is a 12-member league committed to Building Winners for Life, with a focus on academic and athletic integrity and a balance between the two for the student-athlete, and maintaining a high level of sportsmanship. Headquartered in Macon, Ga., the A-Sun encompasses six of the top eight media markets in the Southeast. The A-Sun consists of some of the most dynamic private and public institutions in the region: Belmont University, Campbell University, East Tennessee State University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Gardner-Webb University, Jacksonville University, Kennesaw State University, Lipscomb University, Mercer University, University of North Florida, University of South Carolina Upstate and Stetson University.
