Friday, January 06, 2012

MACON, Ga. - Ten Atlantic Sun Conference men's basketball games are slated for play over the week including two scheduled to be shown on ESPN3 and the other eight can be seen on ASun.TV. Jacksonville at Stetson on Jan. 7th can be seen on ESPN3 as can Kennesaw State at Mercer on Friday, Jan. 13th.

• In the Battle of the Boulevard on Friday, two A-Sun student-athletes have a chance to reach the 1,000-point plateau. Belmont’s Mick Hedgepeth sits at 996 points, while Lipscomb’s Jordan Burgason has totaled 990 points in her career. The Bruins’ Ian Clark has already reached the 1000 point mark this season.
• The Bison lead the all-time series record in the Battle of the Boulevard at 72-56, but the Bruins hold the slight edge in the NCAA era, 9-8. The two teams split the season series last season, but Lipscomb has claimed four of the past five meetings.
• Stetson’s trio of Adam Pegg (13.3), Chris Perez (13.0) and Aaron Graham (11.8) all rank in the top-10 of the A-Sun for scoring this season. Their combined 38.1 point per outing accounts for 56 percent of the Hatters offense. Joel Naburgs is also almost averaging double digits for Stetson at 9.6 points per game this season.
• Despite the slow start in conference play this season, Jacksonville (0-3) has finished in the top-four of the conference standings in the past five seasons with league titles in 2009 and 2010. The Dolphins have averaged 13 A-Sun wins since the 2006-07 season.
• With his 29-point performance at ETSU on Wednesday, USC Upstate’s torrey Craig took over the league scoring lead at 17.3 PPG just ahead of Kennesaw State’s Markeith Cummings at 16.3 PPG. Craig has seven 20-point games this season, which also leads the A-Sun.
• With 162 career blocks, ETSU’s senior forward Isiah Brown is tied for seventh-best in A-Sun history. He currently sits second in the conference this season with 1.6 blocks per outing. North Florida’s Matt Sauey ranks 16th all-time with 130 career swats. Brown is also nearing in on the career rebound record book as he is 15 away from tying Sam Mitchell (Mercer; 1981-85) at 703.
• A-Sun teams have been unstoppable on their home courts this season with a 41-13 combined record. Eight of the ten teams own a winning record at home, while four teams have at least five victories including; Belmont (7-0), North Florida (7-1), Mercer (6-1) and FGCU (5-1). ETSU and USC Upstate both claim perfect records at home at 4-0.
• Mercer has continued its suffocating defense into conference play as the Bears lead the league in scoring defense (63.9 PPG), field-goal percentage defense (.387), three-point field goal defense (.318) and blocked shots (5.1). The Bears have held nine opponents to below 60 points this season including the past three.
• Belmont jumped up two spots in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Poll this week to No. 17 following a win against Marshall on Dec. 29th.
• FGCU’s Christophe Varidel leads the league in both free-throw shooting (.906) and three-point percentage (.516). The last A-Sun student-athlete to achieve that feat was Samford’s Joey Davenport in the 1994-95 season.
• Mercer’s Daniel Coursey is best in the conference for blocked shots (2.3) and field-goal percentage (.641). The 6-10 sophomore forward has dramatically increased his production this season as he is averaging 8.1 points and 4.5 rebounds up from 0.2 points and 0.3 rebounds in 18 games played with limited minutes last season.