Samford returns to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 years
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| Achor Achor and Rylan Jones embrace as time winds down in Samford's SoCon championship win over ETSU on March 11. |
Thursday, March 21, 2024
No. 13 Samford (29-5) vs. No. 4 Kansas (22-11)
Midwest Regional 1st Round/9:55 EST TBS/Salt Lake City, UT/Delta Center (18,226)
The Bulldogs opponent in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament will be the Kansas Jayhawks, which will mark the first-ever meeting between the two teams. It will mark Samford's first game in the NCAA Tournament since the 2000 NCAA Tournament, as the Bulldogs faced off against the Syracuse Orangemen in the 2000 NCAA Tournament, dropping what was a 79-65 contest.
Samford is 0-2 in the NCAA Tournament, while the Southern Conference is 33-80 all-time in the Big Dance, and should the Bulldogs claim a win in Thursday night's opener in Salt Lake City, it would mark the second-straight victory in the Big Dance, following up Furman's 68-67 opening round triumph over Virginia last season, which was also a No. 13 vs. No. 4 matchup.
Samford is part of a recent run of SoCon success. A win Thursday night would align it with some of those other dominant teams in the league in recent memory, joining ETSU (2019-20) and Wofford (2018-19) with 30 wins, as well as Wofford (2018-19) and Furman (2022-23) as the only two teams to have won an NCAA Tournament game over the past 16 years.
The SoCon hasn't won back-to-back NCAA Tournament games in back-to-back seasons since VMI won consecutive tournament games in the 1976 and '77 seasons, respectively.
America's love affair with SoCon Hoops!
Every March America seemingly loves to fall in love with the Southern Conference champion. It seems the SoCon champion, especially in recent seasons, is a trendy opening round upset special pick for many filling out their brackets among not only fans, but also some of the pundits and talking heads that do this stuff for a living.
The SoCon also seemingly has the ultimate "comeback stories" and "David vs. Goliath" narratives to call upon from the past. There was the story of Steve Forbes and his journey back from a tumultuous time at Tennessee back in 2017, leading ETSU into the tournament against SEC member Florida.
In 2018, former Roy Williams guard at North Carolina— Wes Miller— led UNC Greensboro into March. Then we had Wofford and three-point king Fletcher Magee in 2019. The 2020 tournament should have included a 30-win Bucs move into the Sweet Sixteen, and no worse than the Round of 32 probably, as Forbes parlayed his swan song into a power five job. It was one of the most dominant runs in SoCon history, sitting behind likely only Davidson's run in 2007-08 and Wofford's in 2018-19 in the modern era.
Following UNCG’s uneventful return, as the nation continued to get back to normal after the pandemic, Chattanooga stole our hearts and the hearts of Furman, with a buzzer-beating winner to reach March Madness in 2022.
In 2023, Furman was the story of redemption, fueling that heartbreak in its buzzer-beating loss to Chattanooga in the conference tournament title game of a year before into a first-round win over Virginia on a three-point shot by JP Pegues with 2.4 seconds remaining, making the most of its first Big Dance appearance in 43 years.
When you want David vs. Goliath, no one will soon forget what Stephen Curry did at Davidson, leading the Wildcats to the Elite Eight in the 2008 tournament, and some 11 years earlier, an upstart Chattanooga Mocs team charged all the way to the Sweet Sixteen. Western Carolina nearly became the first No. 16 to knock off a No. 1 seed in 1996, falling to top seeded Purdue, 73-71, at "The Pit" in Albuquerque.
If anything, the SoCon is America’s conference during March Madness.
With that said, there’s a new story unfolding. The ultimate underdog punching well above its weight, and to find find that, one needs look no further than the state of Alabama and to the SoCon’s latest champion—the Samford Bulldogs—which is led by its head coach and his rags-to-riches story, in Bucky McMillan. He brings a version of basketball into the 2024 Big Dance known simply as “Bucky Ball.”
Samford is ready to become your favorite back-slidden college basketball program that is the latest to turn over a new leaf and turn from its old ways, and steal your heart this March. Come along for the fun ride upon the Bucky McMillan bus, which at times, seemingly has no breaks…We kind of like it that way, though.
Samford’s Odyssey through College Basketball’s Wilderness
It took a vision with earmuffs for Director of Athletics Martin Newton to hire former high school standout head coach Bucky McMillan out of Mountain Brook High School in Birmingham to replace predecessor Scott Padgett as the head coach of Samford basketball some four years ago.
Following a 6-14 record in the COVID-19 shortened season of the 2020-21 season, which was McMillan's first at the helm of the Bulldogs, the former standout high school coach has won 20 or more games each of the past three seasons, and he comes In having won an incredible 71 games over the past three, finishing no worse than third in the SoCon standings in any of those campaigns. This season, the Bulldogs won a school record 29 games.
All told, McMillan has 77 wins as the head coach of the Samford basketball program, with none more important than his last one—his 77th—as it helped the Bulldogs get back to a destination they haven't been their membership in the former Trans America Athletic Conference (now Atlantic Sun Conference) back in 2000 under then head coach Jimmy Tillette.
Though Tillette hailed from New Orleans, he was far from any “riverboat gambler” when it came to basketball, employing a Princeton Style offense that had one of the slowest offensive efficiency rates in the country at the time.
Tillette's version of Samford basketball was a stark contrast to the current Bulldogs, which ran a Princeton style offense and ranked 277th (65.2) in adjusted offensive efficiency and tempo according to KenPom back in 1999, which was the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance as an NCAA Division I member.
Some 25 years later, the Bulldogs rank 13th in KenPom in adjusted offensive efficiency and tempo (72.6) and led the SoCon in scoring offense (86.0 PPG).
The 86.0 PPG currently ranks fifth in college basketball in scoring offense. The Bulldogs are the second-straight SoCon champion to have led the Southern Conference in scoring offense to go on to win the title.
Last season, Furman, which returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 43 years, became the first SoCon champion since 2013 to win the Southern Conference Tournament title to have led the SoCon in scoring offense throughout the season, finishing the 2022-23 season averaging 80.9 PPG.
The 86.0 PPG ranks ninth in SoCon history among champions that have won the league title that have also led the league in scoring offense. Below are the order of scoring champions that have gone on to win the SoCon Tournament title.
1. ETSU--1990-91 (94.1 PPG)
2. West Virginia--1959-60 (89.5 PPG)
3. ETSU--1989-90 (89.2 PPG)
4. West Virginia--1966-67 (87.2 PPG)
5. Davidson--1968-69 (87.1 PPG)
6. West Virginia--1957-58 (86.9 PPG)
7. Furman--1972-73 (86.2 PPG)
8. ETSU--1991-92 (86.1 PPG)
9. Samford 2023-24 (86.0 PPG)
A Look at Samford:
Samford’s early years as a SoCon member weren’t all too bad, making the semifinals of the conference tournament in its very first Southern Conference season, which was the 2008-09 campaign. It would result in an 81-70 loss to eventual Southern Conference Tournament champion Chattanooga in the Scenic City. It would be another eight years before the Bulldogs would return to the semifinals of the tournament before getting knocked off in the semifinals, 81-72, by eventual champion East Tennessee State.
Four years later and now under the direction of McMillan, the Bulldogs were oh so close to getting into the title game, dropping a hard-fought, 71-68, contest to Furman. The Paladins went on to lose the championship game at the buzzer on a 35-footer from David-Jean Baptiste.
Last season, the Bulldogs battled injuries and even the embarrassment of a loss to a non-Division I foe and overcame all of that to tie with Furman for the regular-season title, however, a loss in the quarterfinals to red-hot Chattanooga and Jake Stephens seemed a cruel fate at the time.
In 2023-24, key roster additions were made in the form of guards Rylan Jones (Utah State), Garrett Hicks (Alabama A&M), Dallas Graziani (Nova Southeastern), along with freshmen Josh Holloway (4.3 PPG, 1.3 RPG) and Riley Allenspach (5.4 PPG, 3.1 RPG), and it it turned to be the right mix of talent and depth to go alongside players like All-SoCon performer and forwards Jermaine Marshall and Achor Achor, as well as guards AJ Staton McCray and Jaden Campbell. It was a mix of talent and depth that allowed the Bulldogs to improve from 21 wins last season to 29 wins and an NCAA appearance for the first time in 24 years.
The Bulldogs suffered a pair of non-conference losses, opening the campaign at Mackey Arena against top-ranked Purdue, where the Boilermakers handed Samford and Bucky Ball it’s most embarrassing loss of the season, dropping the Bulldogs 98-45. The Bulldogs followed that up with a 75-65 setback to Atlantic 10 runner-up VCU at the Siegel Center.
After that, the Bulldogs wouldn’t lose a game for over two months, reeling off 17-straight wins before eventually losing a SoCon game on the road with a 78-68 setback at Furman. The Bulldogs would lose only twice more in league play, with setbacks at Mercer (L, 88-84) and at Wofford (L, 91-69) to close out SoCon play. The loss at Wofford came without three starters, who sat out the game nursing minor injuries in order to be ready for the Southern Conference Tournament.
Achor Achor is perhaps the player to watch most on this Samford team, as his improvement has been stark this season, and he has improved as much as any player in college basketball this season. The 6-9 junior forward from Melbourne, Australia, is averaging 15.8 PPG and 6.1 RPG this season after averaging 6.1 PPG and 2.8 RPG last season. Achor Achor was the 2024 SoCon Tournament Most Outstanding Player, posting a 28-point, 14-rebound effort in the Bulldogs’ semifinal win over Furman, and he followed that up with a 25-point, nine-rebound performance in Samford’s 76-69 SoCon championship win over East Tennessee State.
Achor Achor is shooting 59.9% (182-of-304) from the field this season, while shooting 44.6% (25-of-56) from three-point range this season. Achor’s signature performance of the season came in a key early SoCon road win at Western Carolina, as he posted a career-high 35 points to go with 10 rebounds in what was a 75-71 road win. It was part of a nation’s best 17-game winning streak.
Jermaine Marshall, who comes in averaging 10.9 PPG and 5.1 RPG this season, is widely regarded as Samford’s top all-around player and entered the season as a primary candidate for Southern Conference Player of the Year before suffering a key lower body injury late in non-conference play, which would keep him out for a good portion of the start of non-conference play before returning in early February.
Marshall is the team’s best defensive performer, and he came up big in Samford’s SoCon championship win over ETSU, as he posted 23 points and eight rebounds. His 23-point scoring effort was his top scoring performance of the season. Marshall also posted 20 points against both VCU and South Carolina State early on in non-conference play.
The Bulldogs backcourt is highlighted by efficiency, and its overall ability to take care of the basketball, as well as being uniquely able to establish the tempo of the team offensively. The key leaders in that process are both Dallas Graziani (4.1 PPG, 1.4 RPG) and Rylan Jones (9.4 PPG, 3.0 RPG), who give the Bulldogs essentially two point guards and effective perimeter threats on the floor at the same time. Jones has been key to the success of the Bulldogs this season, and is the ultimate “glue guy.” Jones led the Southern Conference and enters the NCAA Tournament ranking 13th nationally in assist-turnover ratio.
The two x-factors in the backcourt for the Bulldogs are AJ Staton-McCray (11.6 PPG, 4.6 RPG) and Jaden Campbell (11.1 PPG, 3.3 RPG), who are efficient perimeter threats and excellent athletically. Along with Marshall, Staton-McCray is widely regarded as one of Samford’s best individual defenders.
Samford’s 86.0 PPG currently ranks fifth nationally in scoring offense, while ranking fifth nationally in bench scoring (33.4 PPG). The Bulldogs also rank sixth in the nation in turnovers forced (16.6 PG), sixth in effective field goal percentage (57.3%), seventh in three-point field goal percentage (39.3%). The Bulldogs also rank in the top 20 nationally in three-pointers made (335) and are 16th in three-pointers made-per-game (9.9).
A Look at the Jayhawks:
In stark contrast to Samford, the Kansas Jayhawks (22-10, 10-8 Big 12) have been playing with limited numbers in terms of a bench due to key injuries for the better part of two months, and played its last two games in the lead-up to the NCAA Tournament. Those two games resulted in sizable losses at No. 1 Houston (L, 46-76) and Cincinnati (L, 52-72) in the Big 12 Tournament, which saw the two combined losses of 50 points be something Jayhawk fans are certainly not accustomed to.
The 2022 NCAA national champions and six-time national champions (1922, '23, '52, '88, 2008 and '22) will be taking part in their 51st NCAA Tournament and are one of the most storied programs in the sport, ranking second in total wins (2,392 wins) behind only Kentucky (2,400 wins). The Jayhawks sport a 112-49 record all-time in the NCAA Tournament and had a round of 32 exit last March, dropping a 72-71 contest to the Arkansas Razorbacks.
The news coming into the 2024 NCAA Tournament for the Jayhawks is both good and bad. The good news first, and that is center and second-team All-America selection Hunter Dickinson (18.0 PPG, 10.8 RPG) is back from a dislocated shoulder he suffered late in the season. He is Kansas’ second-leading scorer and leads the team in rebounding and offers outstanding rim protection on the defensive end of the floor, having swatted away 43 shots on the season.
Dickinson also sports an effective 55.0 FG% (235-of-427) and can be a threat from the perimeter, having knocked down 35.0% (21-of-60) from three-point land this season. Dickinson is a 7-2 center that came to Kansas via the transfer portal, having played his three previous seasons at the University of Michigan, where he was a three-time All Big Ten selection. He has scored 2,174-career points entering the NCAA Tournament and sports a career field goal percentage of 56.5% (875-of-1550), as well as 1,174 career rebounds (9.0 RPG) in his career at both Michigan and Kansas.
When healthy, Dickinson has been outstanding all season for the Jayhawks, posting 16 double-doubles and 14 games with 20 or more points in 2023-24.
The bad news for Kansas is that it won’t have graduate senior guard and leading scorer Kevin McCullar Jr. (18.3 PPG, 6.0 RPG), who head coach Bill Self announced Tuesday that he would be shutting down for the remainder of the season.
McCullar was a legitimate candidate for national player of the year at mid-candidate at mid-season and recently in a late-season loss to Houston, ended up suffering what turned out to be a season-ending lower body injury, exiting the game with knee pain.
This injury is significant in that it will not only affect the Jayhawks on the offensive end of the floor in terms of point production, but also on the defensive end of the floor where he is widely regarded as one of the best on-ball defenders in college basketball, and was known that in his previous three seasons at Texas Tech before transferring to Kansas prior to the 2022-23 season. He had two triple-doubles this season, which is second nationally. The loss of McCullar Jr. will likely severely affect any hopes of a deep run in the NCAA Tournament for the Jayhawks in 2024, who entered the 2023-24 campaign as one of the handful of teams favored to win the national championship.
With that said, the Jayhawks are talented, with the biggest question facing head coach Bill Self being who is going to pick up the scoring slack, or will that “slack’ be done on a “scoring-by-committee basis.”
Junior forward KJ Adams Jr. (12.3 PPG, 4.5 RPG) will now be asked to pick up some of the scoring slack for the Jayhawks, which is something he had to do by default last time out against Cincinnati almost by default without both Dickinson and McCullar Jr. available to play due to injury. His 22-point scoring effort was a career-high.
Adams Jr. was an All-Big 12 honorable mention honoree this season, and is shooting 60.1% (163-of-271) from the field. He won’t pose much of a threat from three-point range for the Bulldogs, as he is 0-of-7 from long-range this season. The 6-7 Adams will team with the 7-2 Dickinson underneath the basket for Kansas, which form a formidable duo underneath for Kansas.
The three guards for the Jayhawks will be freshman Johnny Furphy (8.8 PPG, 4.7 RPG), Dajuan Harris Jr. (8.3 PPG, 1.8 RPG) and Nicolas Timberlake (4.7 PPG, 1.8 RPG) will round out the starting five for the Jayhawks, with Timberlake obviously having the biggest shoes to fill by having to try and replace McCullar in the starting five for Kansas. Timberlake scored just five points and was a -25 in +/- last time out against the Bearcats.
Timberlake is a 6-4 graduate senior guard, who transferred into the program from Towson. He was a two-time All-CAA First Team selection prior to his arrival in Lawrence this season. He posted his best game of the season in a recent 90-68 win over Kansas State in early March, finishing with 18 points on 6-of-7 from the field and was 4-for-5 from three-point range. He brings with him experience and is talented, but is a far cry from being the player the ilk of McCullar.
Furphy will have something in common with Samford’s Achor Achor, as the two both hail from Melbourne, Australia. Furphy as an Honorable Mention All-Big 12 selection this season, as well as having been selected to the Big 12’s All-Freshman Team.
He has 13 double-figure scoring performances this season, which includes a career-high 23-point effort in a 74-69 win over Cincinnati. Furphy is a solid threat from long-range this season, having connected on 35.4% (40-of-113) from long range this season.
The 6-9 guard could cause some matchup problems for the smaller Bulldogs, and look for Jermaine Marshall to likely draw the assignment of trying to match that size with his physicality and defensive prowess.
The Jayhawks' projected starting five is rounded out by redshirt senior Dajuan Harris Jr., who is one of the top defensive players in the Big 12.
The redshirt senior guard garnered the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year in 2022-23 and was a member of the Big 12’s All Defensive Team once again this season, as well as being an Honorable Mention All-Big 12 selection. Along with his 8.3 PPG this season, he has 49 steals and 12 blocks this season. He posted a career-high 23 points in an early-season win over the Wildcats.
Why Samford Can Win:
The Bulldogs can not only keep this game close, they can win this game. The Bulldogs will get a weaker version of Kansas than we are accustomed to seeing, and a team that has become a shell of the one many had tabbed as a national title contender at the start of the season. With that said, it’s not going to be easy. But with the game being at nearly a mile high above sea level in Salt Lake City, and the fact that the Bulldogs play 10-11 players to the Jayhawks’ 7-8, the biggest advantage the Bulldogs will have is their depth and playing style against a team that Kansas isn’t used to playing in the Big 12, nor is it one is favorable to play in a matchup given the circumstances for Kansas. Kansas isn’t a great shooting team from the perimeter, with opponents having knocked down 75 more threes (265-180) this season. The primary good sign to watch in this game for Samford, however, will be the pace of play. If Samford has this game headed towards the 80s, I feel pretty good about their chances. Kansas also ranks 155th in college basketball in turnovers per game (11.6), and if the Bulldogs can make those live-ball turnovers, it will be a good sign. Samford is sixth nationally in turnovers forced per game (16.62).
Why Samford Could Lose:
In its early-season clash with Purdue, the Bulldogs had trouble guarding Purdue’s Zach Edey one-on-one and he was able to distribute out of the paint with his passing ability for open threes for the Boilermakers in what was a lopsided 53-point win earlier this season. Edey finished that contest with 16 points and 11 rebounds and dished out just two assists, but his ability to distribute the ball and be a facilitator within the Boilermakers offense is something that gave the Bulldogs issue in that season opener way back on November 6. Edey also had four blocks in that game, and the Bulldogs had trouble ever finding any comfort in the paint against Edey and that kind of size. The Bulldogs will once again be facing that type of size in a game when they take the floor Thursday evening against the Boilermakers. At times this season, Achor Achor has been prone to foul trouble. If that happens against the Jayhawks, it will be a tall task for true freshman Riley Allenspach and Zach Loveday (Baylor transfer), but though Loveday hasn't been used that often this season, his experience could come in handy this evening if he is called upon in spot-duty. Still, I feel like the only hope Samford has is to keep Achor Achor out of foul trouble. Extended periods without Achor Achor in the lineup is not a recipe for success, especially early in the first half. The longer Achor Achor can go without picking up his first two fouls in the game, the better Samford's chances will become. Kansas also takes really good care of the basketball, and that has been a big part of Samford's scoring output this season, utilizing the points off turnovers category as good as anyone in the country and is similar to what you might see statistically from a team like Stephen F. Austin. The Jayhawks are 14th nationally in assist/turnover ratio (1.62).
Prediction:
Samford 81, Kansas 78
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