Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Ten Days of A-Sun Basketball ventures to the site of the 2007 General Shale A-Sun Championship at ETSU. As the ETSU men's basketball team prepares for a new season in 2006-07, the Buccaneers are set to undergo a significant facelift. Welcoming six newcomers to go along with nine returning players, the Bucs enter the upcoming hoops campaign with the challenge of replacing three players that were significant contributors to 72 wins and two trips to the NCAA Tournament over the last four seasons.

Coach Murry Bartow on the Bucs

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SEASON PREVIEW - (Courtesy ETSU Media Relations)

The most prominent of that group was 2005-2006 Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Year and two-time Southern Conference Tournament MVP Tim Smith (Newport News, Va.), who wrapped up his career as the program's all-time leading scorer with 2,300 points. In addition to Smith, the team also said farewell to 1,000-point scorer Ben Rhoda (Dayton, Ohio) and Dillion Sneed (Chicago), two players who finished last season averaging 11.2 and 11.3 ppg, respectively. In total, those three players accounted for over 50 percent of the team's offense a year ago.

While those three losses leave ETSU head coach Murry Bartow with some significant holes to fill in his roster, the Bucs will put their hopes in a quality group of returning players and a promising freshman class. Along with the eight returning players, the team will also add six true freshmen to their ranks, a group that is highlighted by four players who left high school as their program's all-time leading scorers. But offense has not been the real issue for the Bucs in recent years. Despite scoring an average of 81.6 ppg a year ago and ranking among the nation's Top 10 throughout the season in scoring offense, ETSU also relinquished 77.8 ppg, leaving the team with a focus to improve on the defensive end of the floor this season.

The Bucs will enter the new campaign with a 30-game schedule that includes a daunting seven-game road trip in late November and early December. Highlights on the schedule include trips to three Southeastern Conference foes, including in-state rival Tennessee, a visit from former Southern Conference rival Chattanooga, a trip to the South Padre Island Invitational, and the General Shale Brick Atlantic Sun Conference Championship which will be played once again this year in Johnson City.

The Backcourt

With Smith and Rhoda stepping out of the picture, the biggest question mark this season for Bartow and his coaching staff may be finding a capable point guard and shoring up the Bucs' perimeter game. Returning from an extremely successful freshman campaign will be shooting guard Courtney Pigram (Memphis), who ended last year second on the team in scoring with 12.0 ppg and was selected to the A-Sun All-Freshman team. Pigram is joined on the perimeter by senior and fellow Memphis native Travis Strong, who enters the upcoming season 312 points shy of 1,000 for his career, having averaged 10.4 ppg a year ago. Both Pigram and Strong give the team quality shooters any time they are on the floor, but in addition to this duo, sophomore Dante Williams (Romulus, Mich.) showed a year ago that he too has the ability to knock down 3-pointers, hitting on 10-of-28 from beyond the arc to lead the team with a 36 percent clip. Along with those three, transfer Ben Williamson (Knoxville) joined the Bucs late in the summer, bringing with him a deft shooting touch and giving the team even more depth at the shooting-guard position.

Read the full season preview

10 Days of A-Sun Basketball Schedule
Oct. 16 - Belmont
Oct. 17 - Campbell
Oct. 18 - ETSU
Oct. 19 - Gardner-Webb
Oct. 20 - Jacksonville
Oct. 23 - Kennesaw State
Oct. 24 - Lipscomb
Oct. 25 - Mercer
Oct. 26 - UNF
Oct. 27 - Stetson