Thursday, December 15, 2011

MACON, Ga. - Twenty-five Atlantic Sun Men's Basketball games are slated for play over the next eight days including four scheduled to appear on ESPN3.

Kennesaw State's match-up at No. 8 Missouri on Thursday, Dec. 15th will be shown on ESPN3 as will North Florida at Virginia Tech on Monday, Dec. 19th. Two Mercer contests can been seen on ESPN3 as the Bears take on Georgia (Dec. 20th) and Georgia Tech (Dec. 22nd). The Lipscomb at Memphis showdown on Dec. 19th can be seen on CSS.

Six contests will be broadcasted on ASun.TV including two on Thursday, Dec. 15th.

• Mercer’s Jakob Gollon, the A-Sun Player of the Week, leads the conference in free-throw shooting at .939 (31-of-33). If the season ended today, his percentage would rank as the highest in A-Sun history passing the previous mark of .918 set by Belmont’s Justin Hare in 2007-08. Close behind Gollon is UNF’s Parker Smith at .900 (27-of-30), which would rank Smith third-best all-time.
• Jacksonville owns three of the top-five three-point shooters in the A-Sun early on in the season with Chris Davis (1st; .529), Keith McDougald (4th; .432) and Aloys Cabell (5th; .412). The Dolphins rank third as a team in the A-Sun at .368 from behind the arch.
• Belmont remained at No. 6 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Poll this week and were joined by Mercer, who received a vote in the poll for the first time this season.
• After a 12-day span from their last game on Dec. 3rd, Kennesaw State plays five contests in the next eight days - all of which come away from home. The five-game trek is part of a eight-game road swing, which began in Nashville vs. Belmont and Lipscomb and ends in Athens, Ohio against the Bobcats on Dec. 30th.
• Mercer’s Daniel Coursey and Lipscomb’s Justin Glenn are producing at an efficient rate this season as the duo ranks 1-2 in the A-Sun for field-goal percentage. Coursey at .696 (32-of-46) is best in the league and ranks as the second-best in conference history, currently. For the Bisons, Glenn is shooting 61.2 percent from the field with 41 shots made on 67 attempts, which currently ranks him 14th-best all-time.
• At 7-3, Mercer is off to its best start since the 2004-05 season. One reason for the quick start has been the Bears defense, which ranks first in the A-Sun for defensive field-goal percentage at .373. It currently ranks as the best percentage in A-Sun history ahead of College of Charleston’s mark of .387 from the 1997-98 season.
• FGCU’s Christophe Varidel has been on fire from the three-point land as he is shooting .524 on the season. His 22 made three-pointers ranks second in the league behind Lipscomb’s Robert Boyd at 27. The A-Sun record for 3-point percentage was set in the 1990-91 season by Samford’s David Mitchell at .526.
• Through eight contests, Stetson leads the A-Sun in two team statistical categories; rebounds per game (39.6) and defensive rebounds per game (27.6) Last season, the Hatters ranked 8th (33.1) and 11th (21.29) in those respective categories. The Hatters also rank second in three-point shooting (.377), which is much improved from last season at .297 and 10th place.
• ETSU is leading the way defensively in the steals department this season in the A-Sun with 10.3 swipes per contest. The Bucs’ Sheldon Cooley leads the conference individually with 2.6 per game and is joined in the top-10 by teammate Tommy Hubbard with 1.7 - good for ninth.
• USC Upstate takes to the road for its first two conference games of the season with trips to Deland and Fort Myers on Saturday and Monday. Half of the Spartans’ conference wins came on the road last season, which included a 72-59 victory against the Hatters in Florida. USC Upstate has won its past two conference openers.