Timmons Arena set to Re-Open in 2025 After 40 Million Dollar Upgrade

Photo Courtesy of Furman University/Harper Corporation

Timmons Arena Re-Imagined: Furman's newly renovated arena is the latest state-of-the-art mid-major basketball venue

"If you build it, they will come." That was certainly true in Field of Dreams. It's been a little different path for Furman hoops and far less simple than it once was for a fictional cornfield in Iowa, which was turned into an awesome setting for a baseball field in the award-winning film Field of Dreams.

For Furman basketball, it's been a long road and it's more about capitalizing on the rare opportunity to win on the biggest stage of the NCAA Tournament coinciding with large donations from major benefactors that have resulted in an upgraded home floor for Furman Basketball.

Some will call it the house that Bob Richey renovated, and while that is true, it also was major donations from the original donor--the Timmons Family--and a 10-million dollar donation from Ravenel Curry III during Furman's championship season, which saw it return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 43 years in 2023 that also had as much to do with it as the winning done by Richey, Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson.

However, all three of those combined factors have led to where Timmons Arena is present day, which is in the process of having the finishing coat of paint applied in preparations for August of 2025, which is when the team will officially begin to use the upgraded, state-of-the-art facility.

Furman's 2024-25 season was not just challenging from the fact that it lost 70.8% of its scoring from the 2023-24 season, it was also challenging because every game seemed like a road game. The most challenging part of the season, however, might not have been even the significant personnel losses, but rather playing in an unfamiliar facility for its home games throughout the 2024-25 campaign.

Originally, the plans for Timmons Arena for it to become the most state-of-the-art venue in the Southern Conference when the past laid plans were put together and the idea of an on-campus facility were first realized some three decades ago.

However, the reality is the conception of the idea of creating a multi-purpose on-campus facility that housed both home basketball games, as well as other things like concerts were easier said than done, and somewhere along the way, the signals got mixed and the design caused far more issues than it did provide the kind of game experience and overall experience for the fan than had been originally conceived in the idea of it.

Adding to the frustrations was the state of the Furman basketball program playing within the oddly shaped facility with pull-out bleachers and teal green railing that obstructed the first couple of rows on the second level was that the Paladins had struggled to produce a consistent winning product on the hardwood. Furman's basketball team was not a team to be reckoned with, and thus, the arena wasn't a venue feared by teams around the league to visit. Other than the poor shot sight lines, from 1998-2015, Furman's Timmons Arena was a place that was not a place that evoked fear into the opposition.

Fast-forward 28 years after the first game was played in the arena and a solution has been made to figure it all out and make the arena what it was originally to be--a multi-purpose facility that is one of the most state-of-the-art venues in the SoCon.

Following a 40-million dollar renovation and complete re-configuration of the arena, the Paladins are set to re-enter their old venue following a 25-win season following a 2024-25 campaign that saw the Paladins have to travel to all of their road games.

For years, fans and opponents complained about everything from the arena's odd design to the shooting site lines, which was a problem for plenty of opposing head coaches. Alterations were made to both seating and other parts of the facility were enhanced with backdrops and seating areas for fans with VIP seating, which even featured a Wicked Weed beer garden and seating behind each basket. That helped hide most from the extreme amount of space that had to be compensated for due to the original design of the arena, which essentially placed a 94-foot hardwood floor inside of a trapezoid, which was tilted on its size with how the court fit inside the strange design.

When it first opened some of the seating was fine, but certainly there were issues. Especially with the pull-out bleachers and space left over, as well as other minor ones that involved the railing obstructing the overall view for fans in the first few sections on the second level. That caused constant battles for the security and fans in attendance, as throughout the game the usher had to continuously return to their seat after standing to watch the game at the railing, which of course obstructed the view for those sitting behind that said fan.

Still, there were some early sellout crowds that even with the awkward seating, when teams like South Carolina and Georgia paid visits, fans were willing to put up for a little of that awkwardness to see a game, and it was usually fans that showed up to see either the Gamecocks and Bulldogs rather than the Paladins.

The arena's odd design also made for some rather strange acoustics, especially when it came to having concerts in this particular venue. While it was constructed to house both concerts and basketball, in recent years it's proven to be far more the basketball and graduation venue, rather than being one to host concerts.

Modeled after Charlotte’s Cricket Arena, the facility originally started out as a 5,500-seat arena, which seemed almost like a trapezoid, with end zone seating that extended behind each goal diagonally and there were places in the far corners of the arena that seemed almost light years away from the actual playing surface.

The opening of Timmons Arena during the 1997-98 season coincided with some pretty dark days for the Furman’s men’s basketball program, as it struggled to find its niche in its new on-campus facility alone with being competitive in the upper echelon of the Southern Conference more often than not.

Prior to the Arena opening its doors to the public on Dec. 30, 1997, the Furman men’s hoops program had made its home away from its current campus in the heart of its old one--downtown Greenville. The first basket from the field scored in the arena by Furman was a jumper from about 12-feet out made by Daniel Quigley, as Furman went on to a 72-69 win over Northeastern Illinois.

Following the 1997-98 academic year, Northeastern Illinois disbanded its athletic department. The Golden Eagles participated as an NCAA Division I program as members of the Mid-Continent Conference before the school decided to no longer sponsor athletics.

There's no word on just what opposition will provide the first test inside the new arena, but it is rumored that it could be another exhibition game similar to the one the Paladins played last October against a power conference foe when Furman welcomed eventual Final Four participant Auburn into The Well for a charity game to benefit Cleveland Park in downtown Greenville, which had suffered some damage from the remnants of Hurricane Helene that had rolled through the Upstate of South Carolina a month earlier.

In this day and age, it is tough, especially for successful mid-majors to get major power conference foes to agree to playing a game at your home venue, so Furman's best option for a power conference foe to pay a visit might be an early exhibition game similar to what they were able to do last year with the exhibition hosting Auburn.

A History of Where the Paladins Called Home

They've been playing basketball at Furman University since 1908, and it's the third-oldest sport at the school, however, it was the first to be known as "The Paladins."

Up until 1961, the school didn't have one uniform mascot, as the now defunct baseball program was known as the "Hornets" and the football team was referred to as the "Purple Hurricanes" and the football team was the lone program referred as "The Paladins." The Paladin mascot would be the one that would eventually stick with all the school's sports teams.

Just like the oldest sport in school history--the football team--the Furman basketball team is also responsible for playing the first basketball game in state history, when on Oct. 30, 1908, the Paladins took on South Carolina and ended up claiming what was a 22-19 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks.

From 1952-1996, the Furman men’s basketball program played its home games in both Textile Hall (1952-58), and after that, the tradition of the ‘Downtown Dins’ continued at the Memorial Auditorium (1958-96).

During its hey-day of hoops in the late 1970s-early 1990s, Furman drew to Memorial Auditorium (1958-96) extremely well, with crowds anywhere from 2,500-4,000 fans the usual norm, while special circumstances, such as the time the Paladins hosted No. 10 East Tennessee State on Feb. 12, 1992, an overflow crowd of both Furman and ETSU fans witnessed the largest crowd to ever see Furman basketball game in its downtown home, as better than 5,000 fans were on hand to witness the Paladins record one of their biggest regular-season wins in program history, as Furman slid past Keith “Mister” Jennings and the East Tennessee State Buccaneers, 103-94.

The Memorial Auditorium even played host to the Southern Conference Basketball Championship on two occasions in both 1975 and ‘76, respectively, with the Paladins winning one of those two league titles (1975), while VMI (1976) claimed the other a year later.

Prior to its time hosting men’s hoops games at Memorial Auditorium, the Paladin basketball program hosted games at the Old Textile Hall, which 38 years prior to its monumental win over No. 10 ETSU, Furman’s own Frank Selvy did something that will live in college basketball lore for years to come, scoring 100 points in a 149-95 win over Newberry College in the first nationally-televised hoops game in the state of South Carolina. Just last November, Selvy, who is more affectionately known as the “Corbin Comet” was enshrined in the College Basketball Hall of Fame

On Feb. 26, 1996, Furman would play its final game in Memorial Auditorium, which saw the Paladins drop what was a 88-79 overtime loss to regular-season champion Davidson, closing out the old Brown Box in somewhat sad fashion for a place that had given Furman basketball so many joyful moments throughout the years.

Timmons Arena’s Inaugural Season

It’s often the case that a venue can conjure up great memories from the past just by its appeal to the senses as a whole. Many remember the great smell of popcorn and the feeling heat generated by the crowds packed inside the old Memorial Auditorium, and that was one of the first things I would come to miss as Furman transitioned its men’s home basketball venue from Memorial Auditorium to its temporary home of Herman Lay Physical Activities Center (PAC) on-campus, which could only accommodate about 850 spectators at full capacity.

The 1996-97 Paladins would just have to make do, and after a 10-17 season, it would be time for the hiring of a new head coach, as Joe Cantafio departed to make way for new head coach Larry Davis, who came aboard after serving as Clem Haskins’ top assistant at Minnesota from 1994-97.

The first-year head coach would also be a part of the Timmons Arena historical legacy, as he would be the head coach of the first Furman men’s basketball team to ever play in the venue, which was a 72-69 win over Northeastern Illinois, and would be the first of what figured to be many great memories to come in the facility.

With those 109 wins over the past nine seasons, the Paladins have won 43.4% of their total 251 total victories over the past nine campaigns. The Paladins have lost no more than three home games in any of the previous nine campaigns, including have lost no more than two on the home hardwood in each of the past five.

Downtown 'Dins:

When the Paladins once played downtown, it was sometimes a challenge to get students from campus approximately six-and-a-half miles downtown to see games at the "Big Brown Box" as it was once affectionately known.

Back in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot for fans of college sports throughout the nation, Furman, which was under the direction of new Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly, made a dedicated effort to reconnect with the downtown fan and help cash in on Greenville's success as being one of the top cities in the southeast to move to.

With that forward vision by Donnelly, which also coincided nicely with a basketball program starting to hit its stride under head coach Bob Richey, it would lead to Furman re-visiting some of its former great moments it had enjoyed in down through the years, which included a record-setting crowd in 2022, as the Paladins drew 6,096 fans at Bon Secours Wellness Arena for what was a 67-66 win over defending SoCon champion Wofford on Feb. 22, 2020.

The culmination of the move back to getting downtown Greenville involved with a Furman program establishing a sustained winning tradition in real-time was playing the entire 2024-25 season in downtown Greenville, with Bon Secours Wellness Arena becoming Furman's official home away from home in the process.

The Paladins finished out the season with a 25-10 record, and played in three different venues during the season, as Furman got creative to engage a new and ever-changing city, while trying to bring basketball back to fans that at one time regularly attended games at Memorial Auditorium or Textile Hall, but had lost touch since Furman's move to an on-campus home.

Furman played twice on the campus of Bob Jones and once at the historic Legacy Charter College (formerly Parker High School Gym), which is the oldest high school playing facility in the Upstate. It added to the legacy and rich history that Furman basketball has worked hard to establish and maintain throughout the metropolitan downtown area of Greenville, which of course was also the home of Furman's campus until 1952.

The Paladins finished the 2024-25 season by posting what was a 13-3 record on three different temporary home venues while Timmons Arena underwent a 40-million dollar facelift. Since 1998, the Paladins have taken the floor 31 times at Bon Secours Wellness Arena (formerly known as the BILO Center), and have posted a 19-12 record at "The Well" all-time, which includes having won 15 of their past 19 games inside the facility.

According to Furman's Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly, "The Well" and fan engagement in greater downtown Greenville will continue to be a big part of Furman basketball in years to come.

"We've consistently had record-breaking attendance in The Well when we go downtown...against Wofford...and we're going to continue to invest in Greenville and have a desire to want to invest in Greenville, but we're going to be selective with what we do and how we go about it and it might not be next season, but if Duke called me tomorrow and told me that would come to Greenville and play Furman, and well that game would be at The Well, and so we're just going to evaluate it on who the opponent is and what the opportunity is," Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly said.

Furman All-Time At The Well (19-12)                                                                                                                                    
12/26/98         Clemson^ 57-64, L
11/16/99         Ole Miss# 61-75, L
11/17/99         South Carolina State# 77-58, W 

12/29/99         Clemson 70-74, L 

3/2/00             UNCG* 77-71, W 

3/3/00             Georgia Southern* 68-54, W 

3/4/00             Appalachian State* 56-60, L 

3/1/01             Appalachian State* 56-60, L 

1/10/07           Davidson 63-71, L 

2/19/07            College of Charleston 77-80, L 

12/14/19          Winthrop 80-73, W 

1/11/20             UNCG 73-86, L 

2/22/20             Wofford 67-66, W 

1/8/22                Mercer 81-66, W 

2/5/22                UNCG 56-58, L 

2/19/22             Wofford 70-69, W 

12/17/22           Stephen F. Austin& 72-70, W 

2/4/23                Wofford 80-67, W 

11/4/24              Columbia International 104-46, W 

11/11/24            Jacksonville 78-69, W 

11/15/24            Tulane 75-67, W 

12/7/24               Princeton 69-63, W 

12/14/24            South Carolina State 68-64, W 

1/13/25               Wofford 62-81, L 

1/15/25               ETSU 73-70, W 

1/18/25               Chattanooga 71-75, L 

1/29/25               Samford 72-70, W 

2/12/25               Mercer 96-72, W

2/15/25               UNCG 50-58, L

2/22/25               VMI 75-71, W

2/26/25                The Citadel 85-42, W

The Evolution of Timmons Arena

If you've followed Furman basketball for the past three decades or more, you'll recall the many different evolutions of Timmons Arena.

It has gone from being the exciting, new on-campus facility, to being an oddly shaped arena that offered Dippin Dots ice cream as one of its main perks along with bad acoustics to go with bad basketball, to being an arena that, over the past decade has become one of the most hostile facilities in the Southern Conference for the opposition to garner a win, and one that Furman and its fanbase have finally learned to embrace as home.

With the hiring of first Niko Medved prior to the 2013-14 season, and then some four years later, the hiring of Bob Richey, those two coaches have now elevated the program to not only one of the best in the Southern Conference, but also one of the best in mid-major basketball over the past 11 seasons.

Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Furman has been nearly unbeatable at Timmons Arena, posting what is a 109-19 record, which includes a 63-10 mark against Southern Conference foes. In all home venues over that same span, the Paladins have posted a combined mark of 127-24 since the start of the 2015-16 season.

The Paladins have made it a home, but it hasn't always been easy. Drawing the same hearty and loyal fanbase that once attended games in downtown Greenville at the Memorial Auditorium and before that, Textile Hall, has been a challenge and a constant work in progress.

Since Furman's rise to Southern Conference prominence over the past 11 seasons, the Paladins have also seen a rise in the level of opponent willing to come play at Timmons. Some high-profile mid-majors like Belmont (2022 and '23) and Loyola-Chicago (2019) have brought a certain excitement that the program lacked in the previous two decades of existence.

Sure, Furman had hosted the likes of power conference foes like South Carolina, Georgia and Clemson before, as well as welcoming in stars like generational talent Stephen Curry from former Southern Conference rival Davidson, or a College of Charleston team on the verge of being ranked in its first season as a league member in 1998, however, never before had the buzz been about Furman basketball from a fan's perspective.

During those days prior to Furman's turnaround as a program, which dates back to its run all the way to the tourney title game as the No. 10 seed in 2015, fans were most often filling the Timmons Arena seats and pullout bleachers to see the opposition--be it South Carolina, Clemson or Georgia, or Curry or that record-setting CofC team from 1998-99.

If you could chart a defining turnaround for Furman basketball, it might be the 2016 CIT buzzer-beating win over Louisiana Monroe, with Daniel Fowler knocking down the game-winning shot. Others might say it came in a loss to close the 2014-15 regular-season, which saw the Paladins drop a 62-60 contest to Wofford, who would end up repeating as Southern Conference champions in 2015.

Whatever the case, the 251-105 all-time record inside the facility, despite the hiccups of shortcomings of it over the years has been one of the better home records in the league over the better part of the past three decades.

All-Time Seasonal Home Records at Timmons Arena:

1997-98        6-4

1998-99        8-4

1999-00        10-3

2000-01          6-5

2001-02         11-4

2002-03         10-5

2003-04         10-4

2004-05         11-2

2005-06         11-3

2006-07         9-3

2007-08         5-6

2008-09         6-7

2009-10         8-6

2010-11         11-2

2011-12          9-5

2012-13          5-9

2013-14          6-8

2014-15           7-7

2015-16           14-2

2016-17           11-3

2017-18            13-3

2018-19            13-3

2019-20           12-0

2020-21            11-1

2021-22            10-1

2022-23            12-2

2023-24             12-3

All-Time Timmons Arena Record 

251-105

Timmons' New Look

Photo provided by Furman University/Harper Corporation

If I were to describe the "new look" Timmons Arena, it would most likely not do it complete justice, as I know that with so many enhancements added to help make the fan experience more pleasurable, as well as other upgrades that were even catered to improve the overall experience of the visiting team, I know I would most likely leave out something major.

With that said, it's somewhat of a surprise to hear that Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly detail that the upgrades made to Timmons Arena were not only a want, but also a need. There was a lot that went into the plans to upgrade Timmons Arena, and according to Donnelly, there were even considerations of building a brand-new arena, which would have costs at minimum likely double what a total upgrade would cost. 

With that said, one of the advantages that Donnelly and his staff had was the ability to look at recent upgrades within mid-major basketball within the area, with the southeast playing host to several of the best mid-major atmospheres in college basketball within driving distance. Places like High Point, Wofford and Elon were a few of the more recent upgrades, while others like College of Charleston, which first opened in 2008, was also considered for its design and overall atmosphere.

Add to that the fact that Donnelly came from Villanova, where he was able to head up and oversee the upgrade of Finneran Pavilion, which first opened in 1986, but was renovated in May of 2017 and re-opened in the fall of 2018. As fate would have it, the third game inside the revamped Finneran Pavilion for the defending national champions would just happen to be against Bob Richey's Furman Paladin team, which handed the Wildcats a 76-68 overtime setback early on in the season. 

It was a crossroads for Donnelly, who had overseen the plans to upgrade Finneran Pavilion, and would end up being the one to lead the upgrade in his post as the Director of Athletics at Furman a few years later. 

"One of the advantages I kind of had with the renovation for Timmons Arena is that I was able to oversee the renovation project for Finneran Pavilion at Villanova as the senior associate athletics director and executive director of athletics development and so I had a chance before Timmons to go through that whole process of architectural design, fundraising, revenue generation, fan experience and one of the really cool things was the exploration of looking at other arenas and kind of figure out what we wanted to do."

"At Villanova, the mirror with Furman...At Villanova's facility, they had the size and the scale to be able to handle a major renovation and the two components there being that because it was in a suburban neighborhood (The Mainline) you couldn't expand the building and you couldn't change the seating footprint and the benefit for us at Furman is that we had a little more leeway and space to work with and so Timmons was actually built to be larger and so then it was really about maximizing space and maximizing the opportunity specific to Timmons and so the different buildings we looked at were everything from Villanova...we site visited...Xavier we site visited...The Cintas Center...Charleston, High Point, Wofford and Elon so we really knew what we wanted to accomplish with Timmons and the whole goal of the whole process was to make sure we maximized every possible space of the arena while also keeping a budget that would be realistic of the job at hand."

In my tour, which I took last week with Furman basketball sports information director Jordan Caskey and senior associate athletics director Erin Mayes, the new arena felt like a college basketball arena, and more importantly, when you drive on-campus through the back entrance of Furman, you know longer have to wonder where Timmons Arena is, as it is readily apparent from the entrance. A new glass entrance and mezzanine are a look of pure class, while a parkway highlighted by bricks with the names of major donors and other significant benefactors to Furman basketball are literally written brick-by-brick as you enter Furman's newly upgraded basketball palace. 

One arena that wasn't mentioned by Donnelly or anyone associated with the project during my tour, but one of the arenas that the new Timmons Arena reminded me of was a smaller version of Neville Arena at Auburn.  

Even in an empty arena it was evident that for the first time Timmons Arena was for the first time felt like an actual college arena. I think one of the big reasons for that is the natural enclosure on both ends of the arena, and the seating capacity, according to Mayes, will be right about 2,800 at full max capacity.

The most striking thing about the new arena is that from the outside and all the glass rising into the air. You know it's a basketball facility and you don't have to look for it. You know you have found the on-campus basketball facility, and the outside of the arena offers a glimpse of the newly fashioned aesthetic upgrades to the facility, and it also offers a preview of the all the surprises inside, which includes everything from new locker rooms for visiting teams and even auxiliary locker rooms should Furman host a multi-team event (MTE) in the future. 

Also, for opposing SoCon head coaches that might be reading this, the shooting sight lines and backdrops are actually like a regular-arena now, and without so much space behind the goals, making it a much easier venue to adjust to than it previously was. In that seating behind the goals, it will be the new seating area and student zone similar to what you might see at places throughout the league, such as the Ramsey Center at Western Carolina or East Tennessee State's Freedom Hall. 

For the fan experience, there are suites that are available to be rented out on game days, with my personal favorite being the one in the far corner of the arena that seats 12. It's the best vantage point in the facility. It was almost not a thing, as it was within six inches of the box not being able to be included in the arena. All told, the arena will feature eight private suites, two party suites and two premium club spaces in the Ingram Courtside Club and the Herring VIP Suite, as well as the Rogues Hospitality Deck.

For the fan of Furman's athletic history, there will be an interactive screen that you can access moments from Furman sports history, and that will include all sports and not just basketball. It's similar to a museum experience that you get some of the other schools that have major basketball programs that have been to, such as Allen Fieldhouse at Kansas or Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium. At Timmons Arena just inside the concourse, a 30-foot screen that is interactive and will give a visual catalog of Furman's athletics history depending on the sport you choose and what moment or player you select.

When it comes down to it, Furman's vision is one that has hinged on the perfect storm of events, with the NCAA Tournament win over Virginia playing a major role in being able to help achieve such a goal for the 40-million dollar upgrade, and along with major gift donations of $10 million by Ravenel Curry III in January of 2023, as well as getting donations from the Timmons Family, which have now been a part of both the original plans for the on-campus facility for Timmons Arena, donating $4 million to the project back in 1998. 

The Timmons family was also financially involved in the most recent upgrade, and as a bonus, head coach Bob Richey and Furman's first-round upset of No. 4 Virginia, 68-67, sealed the deal. You could say that the upgraded Timmons is the house that Curry, the Timmons Family, and head coach Bob Richey all had a major influence the original vision for an upgrade. 

Finally, not only was the upgrade a necessity, but with schools like Wofford, High Point and Elon opening high-level facilities that are as appealing as any in mid-major basketball, there was an unspoken pressure for Furman to make a similar type of dedication to its declining basketball facility by either upgrading its current one or just starting again from scratch. The former was much more viable than the latter. 

According to Donnelly, the facility is already paying dividends before even hosting one game or one event after its new facelift. 

"The revenue impact of the facility is one thing people don't talk about is already making a difference. We've already exceeded any revenue numbers that we previously have ever had...We just started selling the building and we already have more opportunities with the building with recruiting, with retention, and for revenue that we've ever had before."

With seven regulars back and the second-most scoring production in the league behind only VMI, Furman figures to once again be among the favorites to claim the 2025-26 regular-season and tournament titles in the SoCon, and that will mesh nicely with the excitement building around such a nicely renovated, and now modernized and state-of-the-art Timmons Arena.

SoCon Basketball Portal and Recruiting Profiles Heading into 2025-26 Part 2-of-4: (A League-wide overview; Tracking East Tennessee State, Samford and UNC Greensboro's Off-Season Moves)

4. East Tennessee State (19-13, 12-6 SoCon/3rd)--Just as was the case when Brooks Savage arrived in Johnson City for his first season after taking over for Des Oliver, he has some major work to do to rebuild the machine that is East Tennessee State basketball during his short time as the head coach, as he has to replace arguably the two top players in the Southern Conference, with the departures of both league player of the year Quimari Peterson, who will spend his final season playing for the Washington Huskies, while Jaden Seymour has also moved on after exercising his eligibility to the fullest extent. 

Both became fan favorites during their time in Johnson City. If  the loss of that dynamic duo wasn't enough, Savage and ETSU fans also had to bid farewell to another fan favorite, in 2024-25 SoCon Defensive Player of the Year Karon Boyd, as he has decided to spend his final season of eligibility playing from the program that once gave ETSU Jaden Seymour and former forward Tevin Glass--Wichita State. He spent just two seasons in Johnson City, and the sting of that loss seemed to hurt fans more than the expected departure of Peterson.

It is true that when Savage took over as the Bucs head coach back in the spring of 2023 he did have to find replacements for top players Jalen Haynes and Jordan King, but he would end up building a nice roster around both Seymour and Peterson, and he would help build the Bucs into a SoCon title contender in a short time, while also winning 38 games and making a SoCon title game appearance in his two seasons as head coach.

The Bucs had a lot of praise heaped upon them entering the 2024-25 season, and rightfully so, with Peterson and Seymour leading the charge. The talent in those two players alone was enough to ensure the Bucs would be in the mix to win their first SoCon title since 2020 and play in the NCAA Tournament again for the first time since 2017.

However, as good of a coach as Savage is, like any young coach in this profession, there is room left to grow. The Bucs seemingly signed one of the best classes in the SoCon from the portal last season, however, there were some glaring misses, particularly in the paint. While John Buggs III turned out to be the absolute talent we all thought he might be, guys like big men Davion Bradford and Roosevelt Wheeler turned out to be misses in terms of what they could add underneath, and for that reason, ETSU ran into some of the same issues that it had in Savage's first season as the head coach, which was without a reliable post scoring presence. 

In Savage's first season, he had a guy like Jadyn Parker, who on the defensive end was a record-setter when it came to blocking shots, while the ones he didn't block, he altered. However, on the other end of the floor, throwing into Parker was like throwing the ball into the ocean, which means when it went into the post, it probably wasn't going back out and Parker wasn't enough a scoring threat in the low-post that, if it did go back out, paint touches essentially became a non-important stat when it came to the efficiency from the perimeter, which is another area the Bucs reallyconcentrated their portal recruiting efforts on last spring.

It worked. The Bucs went from ranking 282 from three-point range in Savage's first season as the head coach to finishing ranked 129th in the nation last season, as the Bucs shot the ball at a solid 34.7% clip from three-point range last season. With Peterson, Seymour and Buggs III being easily the team's best three-point threats, along with Maki Johnson off the bench. With that said, another player from the portal that never really panned out last season for the Bucs was Curt Lewis, who was added to try and bolster that three-point shooting acumen even more. 

If Buggs III hadn't had to miss so much time with two concussions last season, the percentage might have been even better for the Bucs for the 2024-25 season. After so much momentum and hype heading to Asheville, despite some depth issues, there was many that had the Bucs as the favorites to win the tournament when they arrived in Asheville, quite simply because they had the two top players, in Peterson and Seymour. 

Then came the disappointment of their quarterfinal loss to eventual champion Wofford, as the Bucs were out-classed and out-worked, particularly in the second half, with Wofford taking the 72-60 win to end bring a sour end to what had been that held the hopes of getting back to the NCAA Tournament and cutting down the nets at the Harrah's Cherokee Center for the first time in five years. That came to an abrupt crash out with the opening game loss.

So what remains for 2025-26 and better yet, what was added by Savage and staff to help ensure the Blue and Gold will remain in the mix for SoCon regular-season and tournament titles again in Savage's third season as the head coach? 

So with the losses of three of the league's top players on both ends of the floor, it almost seems like starting over with a blank canvas in some respects. 

Not only do those losses effective the overall production on both ends of the floor, but all three losses also affect the team's overall identity ETSU has established under coach Savage, which is one of both defensive grit and offensive versatility. Having to go about replacing so much production in the portal has to be attacked piecemeal, and not all at once, addressing each role and each piece to the puzzle, and how it fits within that certain team identity very carefully.

All told, the Bucs must replace nine of their top 12 producers from a year ago, which is pretty much everyone. The three holdovers are veteran guards Allen Strothers, Gabe Sisk and Maki Johnson, which at least gives a core group that knows Savage's coaching expectations, which help bridge the gap to such a large group of newcomers coming in for the 2025-26 season.

Leading the way is Allen Strothers, who is the old man of the group. In fact, Strothers has been among Savage's most loyal players during his short time at ETSU, and heading into his third season at the helm, Savage will need the leadership of a player like Strothers more than ever. 

Strothers, who is a player that has battled some extensive injuries throughout his Bucs career, returns off a season, which saw him serve the role as being one of ETSU's best on-ball defenders, on the offensive end of the floor, the rising redshirt senior was a table-setter. He saw action in 31 of 32 games last season, starting eight of those games, while averaging 3.5 PPG and 2.5 APG last season in 19.3 minutes-per-game, which came primarily as the sixth man off the bench for the Bucs.

Gabe Sisk is another player that has been loyal to Savage, and the 6-5 athletic guard is one of Savage's first freshman signees out of Ballard High School in Louisville, KY. The athletic shooting guard has served as one of the team's strongest defenders and rebounders off the bench in his first two seasons, and after logging action in 29 games off the bench, averaging 13.1 minutes-per-game last season, he will join Strothers as a player challenging for a starting job heading into the 2025-26 season.

Sisk finished the 2024-25 season averaging 4.0 PPG and 2.8 RPG last season, and in his junior season, Sisk will hope to make that jump offensively, as Savage will need him to become more offensive-minded as a player. An improvement as being another perimeter threat that the opposition has to account for would be a good place for Sisk to start. He has shot just 22.9% (22-of-96) from three-point range in his first two seasons with ETSU. 

It's clear that Sisk has established himself as an elite defender, and like Strothers, though both have had their struggles on the offensive end throughout their respective careers with the Bucs, it's their play on the defensive end of the floor that will ensure each will see plenty of floor time once again in 2025-26. However, if either Sisk or Strothers wants a starting job in 2025-26, they must show the ability to consistently produce on the offensive end of the floor.

The final of the three musketeers returning for the Buccaneers is Maki Johnson. Johnson was a player that served an important role when ETSU faced issues due to injury in the middle portions of the season, especially when both John Buggs III and Jaden Seymour were down with injuries. Johnson's performance in ETSU's road win at Samford, which snapped the Bulldogs' 28-game homecourt winning streak on something called "Neon Night" before a packed Pete Hanna Center, won't soon be forgotten by ETSU's loyal fanbase.

The 6-4 shooting guard out of Huntington, WVa, provided silencer after silencer to a crowd decked out in neon yellow shirts, as he connected on 3-of-11 from three-point range and added three crucial steals on the defensive end, finishing with a key 11 points in what would be a 65-60 road win over the league-leading Bulldogs. Johnson's performance was the difference in what is arguably the biggest win of the Brooks Savage era to this point. Johnson was one of three Bucs in double figures in the win over the defending champion Bulldogs.

Johnson's 11-point effort against Samford was one of seven double-figure scoring performances last season, and it included a season and career-high 18-point performance in the second meeting with the Bulldogs 20 days later in Johnson City in what was another impressive win for the Bucs, as ETSU sent the defending league champions back to Birmingham with a 66-59 loss. As for Johnson, he was once again one of three ETSU players in double figures, finishing his signature career performance to this point by going 4-for-9 from three-point range, as well as going 6-for-8 from the line in the win. 

All told, Johnson finished the 2024-25 season by seeing action in all 32 games, including making six starts, as he finished the season averaging 5.9 PPG and 2.1 RPG, while shooting a solid 35.5% (59-of-166) from three-point land last season. Johnson is both ETSU's leading returning scorer and best returning three-point marksman. 

Now it's on to the tremendous haul brought in from the transfer portal for the Bucs. A total off 11 newcomers will be a part of ETSU's roster next season, with 10 of the 11 being transfers, while the Bucs also have also added one high school signee. 

The Bucs really made more of a concerted effort to not only add talent, but complimentary talent in both the backcourt and frontcourt. While the Bucs went out signed guard talent last season, in John Buggs III and Curt Lewis, it was more a concerted effort by Savage and staff to add size, scoring ability and depth to the frontcourt. None of those frontcourt signees ended up panning out to fill the role they were originally brought in to fill.

Savage's third major haul from the transfer portal appears to be one that, at least on paper, looks like not only the most talented, but one that most fits the identity of what Savage is truly trying to establish, which is all about building a team that dictates the rules of engagement on both ends, picking points in the game to run but not playing fast as an identity, while being a team continues to be an defensively elite unit. 

Savage's first two teams as the head coach have lived up on the defensive end of the floor, however, on the offensive end, the Bucs have shown flashes but nothing like the consistency and versatility that Savage wants, which was something he was able to get out of his teams under Forbes as the offensive coordinator at Wake Forest. This mix of players brought in by Savage and staff looks more on par with the type of team identity he wants in Johnson City and the type of identity he had in Winston-Salem as the Demon Deacons' offensive coordinator.

One of the several additions expected to make a big splash this season is 6-8 small forward Cam Morris III, who comes to ETSU from UMass-Lowell. The graduate transfer is athletic with a high-motor and is not only an impressive presence on the defensive end but was a reliable scorer in the post for the River Hawks in four seasons. In 88 games at UMass-Lowell, Morris III saw action in 88 total games, logging 44 starts, while averaging 8.6 PPG and 5.0 RPG.

This past season, Morris started 26 of 27 games for UMass-Lowell and posted 8.3 PPG and 4.7 RPG, averaging 23.7 minutes-per-game. 

Joining Morris as not only a player that will come in and start right away, but could be one of the leading producers on the offensive end of the floor is sharp-shooting guard Milton Matthews out of Florida A&M. 

The 6-3 shooting guard comes in having connected on at least 100 three-point field goals in each of his previous three seasons at actually started his career at NAIA St. Thomas University in Florida before making his way to Tallahassee and the NCAA Division I level to play for the Rattlers. 

No matter the level, Matthews has been a problem as a perimeter threat and scorer. The District Heights, MD., product was on Savage's radar long before he arrived at ETSU, and for Savage, who hails from Baltimore, it was a player that comes from his home state and probably gives him a little sense of satisfaction knowing that he has potentially someone to discuss Baltimore Orioles baseball--his other major passion when he isn't coaching--with during the season. 

As for Matthews and his time at FAMU during the 2024-25 season, he averaged an impressive 14.7 PPG, 3.4 RPG, and 1.7 APG, while shooting a blistering 41.6% from three-point range.  He also shot a strong 81.0% from the free throw line in a total of 28 games last season. To sum up his ability as a three-point threat, Matthews connected on five or more threes in a games 22 times in 87 games he suited up for both Florida A&M and NAIA St. Thomas during the previous three seasons. 

In 59 games at NAIA St. Thomas, he scored 1,101 points, which equates to an impressive 18.7 PPG scoring average, while shooting a over 40% from three-point land. He also connected at an impressive 83.7% from the charity stripe. 

Simply put, Matthews is a bucket and he's a playmaker. He's the closest thing to cloning John Buggs III that ETSU could possibly hope for, and he is the type of player that gives Savage some options, thanks in large part to his versatility as a scorer and distributor. While Matthews is an elite perimeter threat, it's not who he is as an offensive threat, but rather just the primary strength in a toolbox full of offensive scoring versatility. Expect Matthews to be among the SoCon's top newcomers in 2025-26.

Former 1-A Tennessee "Mr. Basketball" and 6-8 forward Jordan McCullum and is the only one of the current recruiting haul brought in by ETSU to actually come from the Volunteer State. The Harriman, TN., played his prep basketball at both Harriman High School and Huntington Prep in Huntington, WVa, which also produced ETSU sharp-shooter Maki Johnson. McCullum played his sophomore and senior seasons at Harriman, while playing his junior campaign at Huntington Prep. 

Coming out of high school, McCollum was a three-star recruit, according to 247Sports and was considered a top prospect in West Virginia in the 2024 class before opting to return to Tennessee for his senior season. McCullum would make the most of his return home, as he garnered the Tennessee Sports Writer's Association 1-A "Mr. Basketball" award in 2024, leading the Harriman Blue Devils to an impressive 27-3 record.

Prior to coming to ETSU, McCullum spent one season at Murray State where he played in five games, posting eight and a pair of rebounds. He will have three years of eligibility remaining for the Bucs. He will add depth and athleticism in the paint, which is something seriously lacking last season for ETSU, and in the end, attrition forced more guys to play outside of their role, and for guys like Jaden Seymour, it forced them to take on more minutes and that ended up proving costly by the end of the season. 

Another frontcourt player the Bucs can look forward to being a potential major producer as a low-post scorer this coming season is 6-8 forward and Northwestern transfer Blake Barkley. The redshirt sophomore will have two years of eligibility remaining. 

Barkley is a tough, hard-nosed player that knows he's way around the basket and that's what originally made him an original recruit that was so popular among Big Ten programs.

Barkley became is another West Virginia native, having played his prep basketball at Putnam Science Academy where he was a three-star prospect as a power forward. He played 12 minutes as a redshirt freshman last season, posting four points and four rebounds. Barkley will provide good depth at power forward, which was a definite need coming into the season.

One of the more highly thought of recruits that will make his new home in Johnson City this coming season will be Brian Taylor II, who comes to ETSU from SIU-Edwardsville, and the 6-4 guard comes to the tri-cities with one season of eligibility remaining. 

Taylor, who is maybe the most athletic "get" for Savage and staff from the transfer portal, turned in what would be considered a breakout campaign for the Cougars, as he finished up the season averaging 11.9 PPG, 4.1 RPG and 2.9 APG. 

Taylor II will have a big role to fill for the Bucs, as he will be replacing 2024-25 Southern Conference Player of the Year Quimari Peterson at the point guard position for the upcoming season. 

In addition what he did as a scorer, Taylor II was also a 49% shooter from the field and was an outstanding 45% shooter from three-point range last season. He was also a solid 73% shooter from the charity stripe for the Cougars last season. 

Another intangible brings to the ETSU roster this season is the experience of having played in the NCAA Tournament last season, as he helped SIU-Edwardsville to a 22-12 mark last season, as the Cougars took on the top-seeded Houston Cougars in the NCAA Tournament's Midwest Regional last March. The Cougars, who dropped a 78-40 contest to the eventual national runner-up, were able to point their ticket to the Big Dance after posting a 69-48 win over top seeded SEMO in the OVC Championship game. 

In that OVC Championship game, Brian Taylor II finished with 10 points, seven rebounds, one assist and two turnovers in 29 minutes of work.

The first announced addition from the transfer portal made by Savage and staff was North Florida transfer Jaylen Smith, who will add depth at point guard and will have two years of elibility remaining upon his arrival in Johnson City. The Ocoee, FL., native finished out his sophomore season with the Ospreys in strong fashion, averaging 11.4 PPG, 5.7 APG, and 1.3 SPG, as he was able to be a factor on both ends for the Ospreys last season.

Smith finished out his sophomore campaign leading the Atlantic Sun in both assists-per-game and total assists (181), while also ranking 29th and 31st, respectively, in both of the categories mentioned above. His 181 helpers this past season ranked as the sixth-most in a single-season in program history, while he totaled 259 total assists in just two seasons with the Ospreys.

During his final season with the Ospreys, Smith connected on 34.9% (62-of-179) from three-point land. North Florida's 409 made three-point field goals this past season led the nation, which was just ahead of Cal Poly's 403 made triples. Smith's solid shooting touch from long-range will also be beneficial to the Bucs, who showed awesome improvement as a team from the perimeter last season, as opposed to Savage's rookie season as head coach in the 2023-24 season.

Smith was an A-Sun All-Freshman selection two years ago, averaging 6.5 PPG , 2.4 APG and 1.4 APG, starting 16 games for the Ospreys during the 2023-24 campaign. All told, in two seasons as the primary starter for UNF at point guard, Smith averaged 8.9 PPG, 1.8 RPG and 4.0 APG, including a 1.98 assist-to-turnover ratio and 102 made threes, which included a 32% career clip from long-range.

Rounding out the recruiting haul from the transfer portal is Brayden Crump from Elon, who joined ETSU in mid-May. The 6-8 forward is a player that the Bucs saw up close and personal this past season, as the Bucs posted a lopsided 84-58 win over the former SoCon member a week before Christmas last season. Crump would log 23 minutes off the bench at forward for Elon in that loss to ETSU, posting six points and nine rebounds. 

Like Morris, who transferred in from UMass-Lowell, the biggest asset that Crump will add to ETSU's heading into the 2024-25 season is his ability on the backboards. As a reserve this past season for CAA member Elon, Crump averaged 4.4 PPG and 3.1 RPG in 15.7 minutes-per-game off the bench for the Phoenix. 

Crump, who will have three seasons of eligibilitiy remaining, redshirted his first season at Elon before logging his first time as a part of the rotation off the Phoenix bench in the 2024-25 campaign. He made appearances in a total of 31 games as a reserve for Elon, connecting on 45.4% from the field, 22.2% from the charity stripe, and 70.7% from the free throw line. 

Prior to signing his NLI to play for Elon, the 6-8 forward from Morganton, N.C., played his prep basketball at Winston-Salem Christian.

Overall, Savage and his staff appear to have gone out and secured one of the top transfer portal signing classes in the SoCon heading into the 2025-26 season. One interesting alteration to Savage's portal recruiting as opposed to his previous two seasons is that he didn't go after a 6-10 or 6-11 center to bring into the fold.

While Jadyn Parker ended up being an absolute gem of a player on the defensive end in his one season at ETSU after coming north from Jacksonville and UNF, he was at times a liability in the post because of his lack of mid-range shot and overall comfortability in the post and around the basket.

Last season, the Bucs brought in 6-10 Davion Bradford and 6-11 Roosevelt Wheeler were brought in, as was 6-9 true freshman Brandon Crawford, with redshirt freshman David Meriweather, which was a part of Savage's first recruiting class, already on the roster and that sent the message that the Bucs were after size and wanted to be big.

With a high success rate for finding bigs that could come in and produce from the transfer portal and  JUCO ranks, as well as from the high school ranks in the recent past in Savage's time as an assistant under Steve Forbes from 2015-2020, ETSU made the most of developing bigs like Tevin Glass, Hanner Mosquera-Perreira, Lucas N'Guessan, and Mladen Armus, who had been brought in and developed into quality big men. 

There were far more success stories than ones like ended up being the fate of promising big men that didn't pan out in the past, like Octavion Corley, were far more the exception than the rule. However, the recent trend of bringing in those 6-9-to-7-0 centers that had already made a couple of stops along the way turned out to be more of a trend that Savage and staff couldn't afford to chance for another season, and that is each situation in which the Bucs brought in size around the basket, what ETSU actually got was under-developed and largely athletically-challenged big men that proved to be more of a net negative.

This time, the Bucs staff targeted smaller, more athletic power forwards and added depth at that position, swapping out the size/offensive development projects for the proven and more athletic commodities. As far finding guard talent, that has always been a strength for Savage as evidenced by guys like 2024-25 SoCon MVP Quimari Peterson, or 2016 SoCon Tournament MVP Greg Pryor during his time as an assistant at Chattanooga.

While there isn't a proven scorer on the roster, Bucs fans should be excited about this new crop of portal talent brought in by Savage and his staff. 

Freshman Additions:

Only one true freshman has been brought in by head coach Brook Savage for the 2025-26 season, and that signing was announced in late November of 2024 and it's a signing that has Savage excited for the immediate future of the Bucs backcourt.

On Nov. 20, 2024, the signing of 6-3, 190-lb guard Maddox Huff was announced on the ETSU website. The native of Baxter, KY., gives the Bucs another player that has a winning edge and personality to the team, as he helped lead the Harlan County to a state title as a junior and back to the championship game during his senior season. 

To give you an idea of how good Huff is, he was the first player from Harlan County High School to be selected to play in the Kentucky-Indiana series, and he comes to ETSU off a final season as a prep basketball that saw him average 29.4 PPG and 7.9 RPG, leading the Black Bears to a 25-9 overall record and a third-straight district title as a senior.

For his efforts in his senior campaign at Harlan County, Huff garnered 13th Region Player of the Year honors by the Kentucky Association of Basketball Coaches. Huff can flat out shoot the basketball, and that, if anything, could give him his greatest chance to garner a spot in Savage's rotation as soon as the 2025-26 season.

In a state known for good shooters, Huff led them all, as he finished out his senior campaign by leading the Bluegrass State in total made three-pointers, knocking down 151 triples in his final campaign as a prep.

Early 2025-26 Outlook:

I've often said that ETSU's brand as a basketball program is similar to some of those at the power conference level on a much smaller, mid-major scale, and that is to say that ETSU hardly ever rebuilds...it reloads.

Even during the darkest of days, which followed in the three seasons after Steve Forbes departed to become the head coach at Wake Forest, the Bucs were never thought of, at least going into any of those three seasons, as a team that didn't have talent or wouldn't be one that would be a surprise to challenge for a title.

So with massive losses for successful mid-major programs becoming a regular thing, it shouldn't be something that should give ETSU fans reason to worry. The Bucs are going to again be a team to be reckoned with in the Southern Conference, and that will be true as long as Savage is in charge. That's primarily because he knows the SoCon hoops scene, and he knows what it takes to win in this league.

With that said, with all the additions made from the transfer portal to help ETSU sustain its winning edge it has re-established in just two seasons under Savage, the young head coach has also made some additions to his staff during the off-season to further enhance ETSU's ability to sustain its hardwood success.

One of the coaches that will be moving on from the staff is top assistant Brian Jones, who has decided to return to Bradley in the Missouri Valley Conference after two seasons under Savage with ETSU. 

The new coach added to the staff is Miles Lester, who comes to ETSU from Drury University, while Cory Dixon, Kris Arkenburg, and Marcus Belcher all remain on staff for the Bucs. Dixon was elevated to assistant coach. 

"I'm excited to have Miles join our staff," said head coach Brooks Savage. "He brings a ton of enthusiasm and a high work ethic that will benefit our players daily," Savage added in a release regarding the new additions recently put out by the school's athletics website. A link to that article is below.

Savage Announces Staff Updates for 2025-26 Season - East Tennessee State University

Blake Sexton will continue in his role as an assistant coach and director of basketball operations after replacing Rob Peterson in that role prior to the 2024-25 season. 

Savage recently called his staff of coaches--Dixon, Arkenburg and Belcher the best assistants he has ever worked with in his career and is looking forward to the upcoming season. 

ETSU is finished recruiting from the portal, and without having looked at everyone's recruiting haul to this point, I would venture to say the Bucs have brought in may be the best talent in the league, and have brought in their most talented crop of recruits in Savage's short, but successful tenure as the Bucs head coach. 

Starters Lost: (5) F-Jaden Seymour (out of eligibility), G-Quimari Peterson (transferred to Washington), F-Karon Boyd (transferred to Wichita State), John Buggs III (Out of eligibility), Davion C-Bradford (transferred to Tulane)

Others Lost: (8)  F/C Roosevelt Wheeler (out of eligibility), F-DJ Hughes (out of elibility), G-Curt Lewis (transferred to Southern Miss), G-Timmy Fasehun (entered transfer portal/not committed), C-David Merriweather (entered transfer portal/not committed), F-Brandon Crawford (transferred/not committed), G-Jaxson Jones (transferred/not committed)

Best Returning Player: G-Maki Johnson

Potential Breakout Player in 2024-25: G-Gabe Sisk

Best Transfer Portal Get: G-Brian Taylor II (SIU-Edwardsville) or Milton Matthews (FAMU)

Best Freshman Addition: G-Maddox Huff

Overall Portal/Recruiting Synopsis and Grade: A+

Samford head coach Lennie Acuff leading Lipscomp in the 2025 NCAA Tournament first round vs. Iowa State  (AP Photo courtesy of Kayla Wolf)

5. Samford (22-10, 12-6/Tied for 3rd in SoCon)--When I was growing up, it would always be frustrating for me when playing certain Nintendo games where if you died in the game, you had to go all the way back to the very first level of the game when you died, but there were others that honored how far you had actually progressed in the game. 

Both Super Mario Brothers and both Zelda wouldn't force you to start the entire game at its very beginning, but rather would honor your progression point, so whatever level you had advanced to in the game, you only had to go back and start at the beginning of that level. That was true unless you didn't save the game, which was a different issue entirely. 

For Samford basketball, it doesn't have to go back to the start of the game, and fortunately, the level it progressed to under Bucky McMillan--one which allowed the Bulldogs to invest into the program and have the largest NIL endowment in the league--will see the Bulldogs be able to start over at this level rather than the one it had to start some five years ago when the program had endured losing seasons in 11 of its previous 13 seasons. 

The Bulldogs have now reached a higher level to progress from. Over the past four years, no team has won more games in the Southern Conference, as Bucky Ball had a notable impact and became the craze and the talk around the Southern Conference and throughout mid-major basketball. 

The bad news is "Bucky Ball" has now moved on to the SEC. Many of the players that helped create a montage of memories over the past couple of seasons, which included winning the SoCon title in 2023-24, have also decided to hit the transfer portal as a result. 

For Bulldogs fans, panic turned to hope within a matter of a few days due to Director of Athletics Martin Newton acting quickly, and this time around, there was a lot easier vision to see a way forward for the program than there was during the spring of 2020 for a myriad reasons that extended beyond the basketball hardwood.  At that time, Samford's program had become a revolving door player for all the wrong reasons. 

Now the Bulldogs are leaving for the portal because of success and not due to bad culture. McMillan's Bulldogs won 93 games and a Southern Conference title over the past four years is a head coach, which is why Texas A&M Director of Athletic Trev Alberts decided to bring "Bucky Ball" to College Station to replace Buzz Williams, who moved on to be the newest head coach at Maryland following Kevin Willard's departure to become Villanova's newest head coach.

Just four days following Bucky's departure for College Station, Lennie Acuff, a native of the state of Alabama and formerly the sitting head coach at Lipscomb, was hired to replace Bucky. 

With over 600 wins, which includes three-straight 20-win campaign as lead man of the Bisons program, Acuff not only seems like the right hire, but maybe the perfect one. The first move by Newton five years ago was to give a young 36-year old coach that the locals loved his first chance, and now Newton has provided a local legend a chance to close out the twilight of his career around friends and family by returning to his home state. 

You couldn't script that, and in both instances, Newton has captured local appeal with the hires, which is something that you must do in a football-crazed state where basketball fanhood can sometimes be "Fairweather."

That being said, the expectations and standard of excellence have obviously changed over the past five years for Samford hoops. The word "rebuild" is one that will garner some unwelcomed looks and comments when said in reference to Samford basketball, especially it is said within earshot of Saws BBQ or Lakeshore Drive. 

Five years ago, rebuilding would have been a welcomed part of the new vocabulary, as fans were just getting indoctrinated into just what "Bucky Ball" was. Five years, 99 wins, and an NCAA Tournament appearance later, the verbiage is instead "reload" and the standard left by McMillan's legacy has created a "win now" expectation among its fanbase. 

Bucky Ball

With 93 wins, two SoCon regular-season crowns and a SoCon Tournament title, McMillan became the latest SoCon success story to make the jump to the big time of high major basketball, becoming the first SoCon coach to move on to a high major since Chattanooga's Lamont Paris moved on to the SEC and South Carolina after spending five years rebuilding the Mocs program, ending with SoCon regular-season and tournament titles in 2022.

With McMillan's exit, Samford had to get the hire right, to help try and keep intact what he had built in his five seasons as the head coach, which saw him finish one win shy of 100 during his time leading then program. 

With that said, the Bulldogs have had the highest NIL Collective over the past couple of seasons, and that wasn't necessarily designed to keep the best players around and from transferring out, but mostly was designed to go out and be able to bring the best talent into the program.

Heading into the 2024-25 season, the Bulldogs had the highest paid team coming in of any team in the league, so naturally, even though the defending champions had lost four of five starters, including three key players to the transfer portal, the Bulldogs simply reloaded by dishing out the cash to make up for those losses. 

While that money only ensured the Bulldogs a fourth-place finish in the league standings and a quarterfinal exit in the Southern Conference Tournament, the money did allow the Bulldogs to put together the second-best season in the program's Division I history, and that included an invitation to the National Invitational Tournament for the first time in school history.

To understand how Samford went from the mid-major doldrums to a career launching pad for coaches and players in the new NIL era, it's a testament to the job that Bucky McMillan did, and how a brand he believed in truly worked to perfection. 

While it's a remarkable story, the long-term effect of Bucky Ball and what the fallout might be when his eventual departure happened, is something I am sure Bulldogs Director of Athletics Martin Newton was fully prepared to face. 

But as we know, things in college athletics often don't follow the chronological estimation of the time we have to figure out the future. For Newton, he probably thought after the initial hire of coaches that took place, that he had locked up Bucky for at least another season. However, Texas A&M came like a thief in the night in the first week of April, hiring the 41-year old coach away. 

Less than 24 hours after news broke that McMillan was leaving for College Station and the SEC, four key players that had already announced they were returning to "run it back" in the 2025-26 season following a 22-10 season shortly after the 86-69 season-ending NIT loss at George Mason, were in the portal: center Riley Allenspach, guard Josh Holloway, forward Jaden Brownell, and wing Lukas Walls all announced they were entering the portal. 

Nearly all of those departures ended up at power five programs, with Allenspach and Holloway set to join Bucky McMillan in College Station, while Jaden Brownell will continue his career at Southern California. Even Hamed Olayinka, who also spent just one season at Samford, ended up transferring out to UConn. Lukas Walls will also end up joining  McMillan at Texas A&M. 

A Messy History

We've seen recent stories of SoCon programs with little tradition turn around their fortunes with just one hire. In 2010, UNCG hired Wes Miller, and eventually the program would be elevated to one of the top programs in the SoCon and a regular 20-game winner and perennial title contender. 

Furman followed with the hiring of Niko Medved in 2013 and that program, which had had virtually no success in the SoCon since the late 1980s and early 1990s is now on level ground and entrenched alongside UNCG as a perennial league title contender. 

You could even add Wofford to those teams that since 2010, has really become part of the SoCon "new money contenders" as the Terriers picked up their sixth title in 15 years this past March, with the Terriers' 92-85 SoCon Tournament title win over Furman. 

The latest program to transform its program from virtually no basketball tradition to now a meaningful one in SoCon hoops is Samford, and a lot of that was due to two men, which were Director of Athletics Martin Newton for having a vision and a belief, while the other was Bucky McMillan, who had confidence in a brand that he believed would work in the Southern Conference. Both were right. 

Rewind all the way back to 2012 in a time long before NIL and the transfer portal, and you will find players from Samford flocking to transfer or if there had been a transfer portal then for entirely different reasons. Samford's basketball program prior to Bucky McMillan in its NCAA Division I era was a blip on the radar if that, and other than a brief period at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, the Bulldogs basketball program, more often than not, has been one that has been below average on the hardwood in its NCAA Division I history.

With that said, when the Bulldogs joined the SoCon under then head coach Jimmy Tillette in 2008-09, the transition into a new league was probably mostly done with football in mind first. After all, it's the state of Alabama, and at the time when Samford transitioned into the SoCon, the league had yet to lose App State or Georgia Southern to the FBS, meaning it was still considered one of the best football conferences across the FCS landscape.

Tillette didn't make it long into Samford's journey into the Southern Conference, however, as Tillette was fired after 15 seasons following the 2011-12 season. Newton was in just his second year at Samford after taking over as the Director of Athletics, and he scanned the country to bring in a viable replacement for Tillette and his "Princeton Style" offense.

Newton would settle on Indiana assistant coach Bennie Seltzer, who had been pretty successful with the Hoosiers under then head coach Tom Crean. 

However, Seltzer's short time as head coach in Homewood would see more players exiting the program than being brought in, and while that might not be out of the ordinary now with NIL and the transfer portal being what they are in the current landscape, when it happened then it very much was. 

A total of 14 players transferred out of Samford's program from 2012-14, and in Seltzer's lone two seasons as the head coach, Samford posted a 24-41 record, and so with the "bad culture" that had seeped in under Seltzer's leadership. 

Seltzer would lose five of his top six scorers following the 2013-14 season, and that was a trend that had to end. This wasn't the Samford of current times, which lost similar numbers after winning a SoCon title in 2023-24, but rather this was players jumping ship for entirely different reason. Newton would appoint Scott Padgett, who was an assistant on Seltzer's staff, as first the interim coach and then the head coach shortly thereafter.

Padgett was able to keep the program from completely going into the dumpster, however, but was never really able to keep the players from exiting the program, and by the end of the 2019-20 season, things had run their course in Homewood, and Newton decided to go in yet another direction. 

Padgett did lead the Bulldogs to 20 wins in the 2016-17 season, which included a CIT win over Canisius, which was the first postseason win for Samford basketball. 

Despite being the team picked to win the Southern Conference a year later, the Bulldogs were picked to finish second in the SoCon off that momentum and tournament run of a year earlier, which included knocked off No. 2 seed Furman in the quarterfinals that year, didn't translate into success in 2017-18, as the Bulldogs could only muster a seventh-place finish with just a 10-22 record.

In Padgett's final season, the Bulldogs finished off the 2019-20 campaign with just a 10-23 mark, which was a record much worse than should have been considering the amount of talent Padgett had available on his roster, and it started with electric point guard Josh Sharkey. 

Sharkey would finish his career as Samford's all-time assists leader (758 assists). His 285-career steals also saw him leave the program as the program's all-time steals leader. If he had had a year of eligibility remaining at Samford, he could have seen those two totals skyrocket as a part of the "Bucky Ball" system. 

Newton made the call and took the gamble after firing Padgett, bringing in the local high school coach from Moutain Brook HS, where he had won five state titles. McMillan, and "Bucky Ball" would be born, at least on the collegiate level.

In six seasons as the head coach, Padgett finished with just two above .500 seasons and never finished above sixth-place in the Southern Conference standings in his career as the head coach. Padgett managed to lead one 20-win season, which was that 2016-17 team that ended up making a nice run in the SoCon Tournament. 

After winning only six games in what was the COVID-19 shortened season in 2020-21, Bucky's system would be full installed by year two, which also coincide with the only season in which the Bulldogs would struggle under the leadership of McMillan. Samford would only win six games in that first season.

It would also be about the players that McMillan would end up attracting to Samford's program rather than the ones leaving, which had even been a problem in the latter years under Padgett. Talented players like Christen Cunningham, Triston Chambers, Justin Coleman, Wyatt Walker, Robert Allen, and Alex Thompson were all lost to transfer in the final couple of seasons with Padgett in charge. 

Players like Cunningham and Walker in particular were two huge losses, as both would have been available had they stayed at Samford, and two players of that caliber could have made McMillan's first season in charge go a bit differently. 

Adjusting to Bucky Ball in 2024-25 

In hindsight, the change might have come in a perfect sequence of timing for Samford basketball. While the Bulldogs were successful and won 22 games and garnered an NIT invite this past season, the fact remains that the teams did adjust. 

For teams with good coaches, like virtually the entire Southern Conference, there was a predictable decline coming, and we started to see that in 2024-25 season, as more "Bucky Ball" created quite the buzz and stirred up quite the media circus at times, with some even calling for the program to become the "Gonzaga of the South." I don't probably then need to tell you that there was a little added motivation to quiet those making such claims.

Winning would become tougher for Samford this past season, and if it wasn't having to adjust and do it with almost a different cast of characters entirely, it was the fact that there was pressure to continue to sustain such success with that same brand as the preseason league favorite. There's no shame in finishing fourth with 22 wins of course, but Samford fell victim to the thing that plagues most defending champions in any sport. The desire by your opposition to defeat you.

Both Furman and East Tennessee State made the game paramount, as did most others around the league. The Bucs and Paladins counted a combined five wins without reply in 2024-25. The Bulldogs, which finished fourth in the league standings after a 12-6 finish in the league, wouldn't lose to a team that finished below fifth in the league, going 10-0 vs. No. 6-10 in the league's final standings, however, went just 2-6 against the top five. 

The point was that adjustments were being made to "Bucky Ball" an even though the highest paid team in the league was able to win 22 games, the 3-6 mark in the last nine games, which included an early exit in the SoCon Tournament, as the Bulldogs bowed out with a 95-78 loss to Furman. Following the 86-69 loss at George Mason in the opening round of the NIT, it was the kind of ending to a season that left a sour taste even though the Bulldogs won an impressive 22 games.

So while it was surprising to see Bucky hired away based on the way the Bulldogs kind of limped to the finish line in 2024-25, it was inevitably going to happen at some point.

Lennie Acuff

So just who is Lennie Acuff? What is his coaching background and why is this hire the right one and the perfect one for the both the circumstances and the place which Samford currently finids itself in as a program?

Acuff is a proven winner and he's been able to do it both at the NCAA Division II level as the longtime head coach of Alabama-Huntsville, and now, he's proven at the NCAA Division I level at Lipscomb, taking the Bisons to the NCAA Tournament.

While Bucky McMillan was the "hometown boy" given a chance to start his collegiate coaching career in front of friends and family, which could help further launch him into even greater success now at the power six level, Lennie Acufff, who is now 68, will have the chance to close out the twilght of his stellar coaching career in his home state and now too far from friends and family to see him coach his final few years so should they choose to do so.

It's not often that a program gets a chance to experience both ends of the career coaching spectrum, however, that's exactly what will Samford and it's basketball-excited faithful will now get to do with Acuff taking the helm.

During Acuff's six years as the head coach at Lipscomb, the Bisons compiled a 110-82 overall record, which of course included getting the Nashville-based school back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2018 NCAA Tournament, which represents the only other NCAA Tournament appearance for the program. 

He led the Bisons to three-straight 20-win seasons as the head coach, including the Atlantic Sun regular-season and tournament titles in 2024-25. He also coached what ended up being the A-Sun's Player of the Year, in Jacob Ognacevic, as well as the tournament MVP, in former Furman guard Joe Anderson. 

Acuff's strong reputation as a head coach was built long before he arrived in Nashville in 2019, as he established himself as a proven winner on the hardwood during his time at NCAA Division II Alabama-Huntsville, where he spent 22 seasons as the head coach, compiling an impressive record of 437-214, which included winning seasons in 20 out of the 22 he spent in charge of the Chargers.  

He led UAH to eight regular-season Gulf South Conference crowns and three Gulf South Conference Tournament titles in his 22 seasons and left as the program's all-time winningest head coach. His job won't be as much about rebuilding Samford, as it will be sustaining its perch as a new mid-major power and perennial SoCon title contender. In the age of NIL and the transfer portal, that will now be increasingly for difficult, even for coaches as good as Acuff.

With that said, this is the perfect hire for Samford, as Acuff will get to close out a legendary career in the state which he built that legendary, winning status--Alabama--and he will also get to go out on his terms as the head coach. 

As for Samford and Director of Athletics Martin Newton, the worry won't be about putting together a short list to replace Acuff should he have too much success, but he will have some time to be prepared to make the next coaching change, which is always a win for any AD. He knows that should things go well for Acuff and staff, he will be able to leave on his own terms and into retirement in his home state, which in a perfect world, it should be for any head coach.

The Project Ahead:

No program in the SoCon is having to replace more outgoing talent due to the transfer portal or being out of eligibility. Success can sometimes not only be a two-edged sabre for the program and the head coach it employs, but also now the players the third-party NIL money employs.

The Bulldogs had more NIL money than anyone in the SoCon during the 2024-25 season, and though it didn't yield a SoCon title like many had predicted prior to the season, it did end up securing a 22-win season and Samford's first-ever NIT invite.

With that said, the goal and the pressure to win were enough that, when it didn't happen, it was always going to be able to retain all the talent that Bucky's and his support network's piggy bank were able to lure to Homewood last spring and summer. 

With that said, it's unclear how much or if all that money went into the seven million, he gets for his NIL money at Texas A&M, or if some or any of it stayed in Homewood. What we can say is that Samford, at least for now, looks to be interested in sustaining its status as one of the top teams in mid-major basketball and the Southern Conference.

With that said, Acuff went about not only hiring a new staff, but quickly assembling talent out of the transfer portal and from the high school ranks in order to help Samford not only build for the future but also build for the "right now."

Almost a completely new roster has been crafted and selected from the portal and high school ranks, as 12 of the 14 players on Samford's roster are new players. The only player that stuck around from last season is guard Zion Wilburn and redshirt freshman forward Caleb Harrison both return to the fold as the only holdovers from the Bucky McMillan era.

Wilburn, who saw action in 20 games in his first season in 2024-25, averaging 5.1 MPG last season, should be in the mix to compete for one of the guard spots heading into the upcoming season. He finished his rookie campaign averaging 5.1 MPG and averaged 1.1 PPG and 0.4 RPG.

Though he didn't see much time last season, he will compete for time at the two-guard spot this coming season and Wilburn will be one of the best athletes on the team. 

With Samford having been stacked with so much talent last season, it was hard for the true freshman to see time on the floor. During his prep career prior to Samford, Wilburn came to Samford from Arizona Compass Prep School, and he came to Samford as a three-star recruit, according to 247Sports. 

Harrison is a 6-9 forward out of Huntsville High School is another talented find by the previous staff, and he ended up choosing Samford over Belmont, Chattanooga, Dartmouth and Davidson. Harrison redshirted the 2024-25 season and garnered All-State honors as a senior. Harrison is also a big that can step out and shoot from the perimeter, as well as being skilled around the basket. Like Wilburn, the redshirt freshman will be in contention to start in the paint in the upcoming season. 

Now that detailing the returning players from the Bucky McMillan era has been accomplished, it's time to take a look at the team that Lennie Acuff and his evolving staff put together during the chaos window of transition to becoming latest hoops coach. One of the things that has made the transfer/NIL era most interesting is that it gives you a glimpse into what the overall identity a coach wants his team  to have by the type of player brought in from the portal.

With that said, this crop of players will be a little different than those McMillan's targets, with McMillan targeting more undersized and extremely athletic big men in lieu of maybe substituting that for skill around the basket. 

One thing that is evident from the players brought in from Acuff is that they are skilled around the basket, as well as bringing a bit more size around the basket. This team will be a little bigger and maybe slightly less athletic and built for more of a different game that is not influenced almost completely by the press. 

One of the best "gets" from the transfer portal for the Bulldogs this season is 6-9 center Dylan Faulkner, who was a big contributor for Samford until an injury ended up derailing his season. Faulkner is a highly skilled big man that can step out and shoot the three, and he will likely start right away.

Faulkner ended up seeing action in 15 games for the Bisons last season, logging 13 starts before an injury officially brought his sophomore season to an abrupt close. With that said, Faulkner will have at least two years eligibility left for Samford, and potentially three if he is awarded an extra year as a medical redshirt from a year ago.

The most important thing about Faulkner as a player, and this can be said for both players that join Acuff in his new venture and were around for his former one, is that they bring a winning edge and mentality to build around for the new, veteran head coach. 

Faulkner continues to develop as a player, and he comes off an injury-shortened campaign, which saw him average 10.5 PPG and 5.3 RPG, while shooting an outstanding 60.8% from the field. He will be a key  in helping both be a leader for a new generation of Samford basketball and help be a mentor for some of the younger players or newer players adjusting to the expectations of their new head coach. 

In his limited action with Samford this past season, Faulkner finished the season with his best performance of the campaign coming in a 96-64 win at North Florida, posting 19 points and five rebounds in the win. For Faulkner, it was one of eight double-figure scoring performances of the season, which included 10 points and four rebounds in a win over Samford's SoCon rival Wofford, as well as 14 points and four rebounds in a win over Chattanooga, which of course is another of the Bulldogs' league rivals. 

The only other Lipscomb player set to join Acuff's roster at Samford will be 6-3 sophomore guard Zach Lamey, who actually hails from Birmingham. Lamey will now have a chance to play in front of his friends and family, while continuing his career under the coach he spent his first couple of seasons playing for.

During his prep career, Lamey played at Briarwood Christian in Birmingham. Last season for the Bisons, Lamey ended up seeing action as a reserve in 21 games for the Bulldogs last season and he finished out the season averaging 0.5 PPG and 0.3 RPG in limited action.  

Jadin Booth is a 6-2 guard that comes to Samford's program out of Florida Southern and will have one year of eligibility remaining. During his time for Florida Southern, Booth was a prolific scorer for the Mocs and ended the 2024-25 season averaging 21.5 PPG, 5.3 APG and 4.7 RPG. He was a highly sought after point guard from the transfer portal, with teams like Minnesota, Creighton, Ole Miss, USF and conference rival Mercer all seeking the services of Booth.

He will be an immediate impact player for Samford and is one of the top incoming players from the transfer portal from the Southern Conference. As a junior in 2022-23, Booth put up similar numbers, as he garnered some NCAA Division II All-America honors after averaging 22 PPG, 4.1 APG and 4.4 RPG. He will be in line to replace Rylan Jones, who was outstanding leading the Bulldogs at the point guard each of the past two seasons. 

Booth started his career at Omaha in 2020-21 and then transferred to NCA A Division II Florida Southern where he has played the past four seasons. 

Another player that will help bolster the Samford backcourt and will compete for time in the backcourt is DaJion Humphrey out of Bowling Green, and he will have one year of eligibility remaining. The 6-4 guard transfer appeared in 20 games for the Falcons last season, which included making 12 starts and averaging 23.4 MPG. 

He finished the season scoring 114 points, averaging 5.7 PPG and surpassed the 1,000-point milestone for his career in a Feb. 21, 69-68, win over Toledo. Humphrey is a good athlete and while he didn't shoot a lot of threes last season, he did finish the campaign a solid 38.9% (21-of-54) from three-point land. 

Illinois State transfer Cade Norris was another solid find out of the transfer portal for Lennie Acuff and he will have a chance to be an instant impact player. As a freshman for the Redbirds last season, Norris saw action in 17 games for ISU where he averaged 1.1 PPG and 1.2 RPG. 

The 6-4 guard and will have three years of eligibility remaining and will have the opportunity to play alongside his brother, Keaton Norris, who joins the Samford program from Wright State, is a 6-0 redshirt senior guard that will have two years of eligibility remaining should he choose to play two more years. Obviously, the rare opportunity to play alongside his brother would likely enhance that appeal.

During the 2024-25 season at Wright State, Keaton Norris averaged 7.5 PPG, starting all 29 games he saw action in last season. As a point guard for the Raiders last season, Norris registered 10 double-digit scoring performances and even posted a career-high 21 points in a 78-70 win over Northern Kentucky. 

Keaton Norris finished out the season averaging 4.34 APG and he also posted a 44.4% effort from three-point range (43-of-96) last season. Norris will be another in competition to replace Jones at point guard in 2024-25.  

Rounding out the guards added for support from the transfer portal for the Bulldogs is Kam Martin, who comes to Samford from Long Beach State. Martin would end up ending the season as the team's third-leading scorer, completing the 2024-25 season averaging 8.4 PPG to go along with 1.7 RPG. Martin will be a good addition to the backcourt as an athletic slasher and pure scoring threat.

The Frederick, MD., product already showed what he could do in just one season at a struggling program, in LBSU, and will figure immediately into the plans of Acuff as a shooting guard for the upcoming campaign. As a perimeter threat for the Bulldogs last season, Martin ended up shooting 34.6% (36-of-104) and was solid as a free throw shooter, knocking down 81.3% (65-of-80) from the line. 

Martin's best performance of his rookie campaign for The Beach came against San Diego, as he poured in a career-best 25 points in LBSU's 76-70 win over San Diego. In the six-point win--one of only seven over the course of the entire season for LBSU--Martin connected on 8-of-10 from the field and was a perfect 5-for-5 from three-point range and was also 4-for-6 from the charity stripe. Coming out of high school in 2024, Martin was a 3 or 3.5-star recruit, as rated by most of the major recruiting services. 

As for the frontcourt, the Bulldogs added a couple of more from the portal to help bolster things in the paint alongside Faulkner. Six-foot-eight sophomore Judson Bjornstad joins the Samford program from NCAA Division Union University where he is coming off an outstanding rookie campaign, which saw him garner the Gulf South Conference Freshman of the Year accolade, and was named GSC Freshman of the Week on six occasions. 

In the 2024-25 season, Bjornstad, who hails from Murfreesboro, TN, averaged 9.0 PPG, 5.0 RPG and 1.5 APG, making 24 starts in 29 games for the Bulldogs in his freshman campaign. In addition to his scoring averages last season for Union, Bjornstad also shot 39.7% (94-of-237) from the field, as well as 27.7% (26-of-94) from three-point land, and was an impressive 81.4% (48-of-59) from the charity stripe last season. 

Bjornstad will likely be competing for a sport at the No. 4 position, and he is a player is a little like a younger version of former Chattanooga Mocs transfer portal addition Garrison Keeslar, who helped lead the Mocs to the SoCon's first NIT title this past April. 

A player like Bjornstad could end up being the ultimate glue guy type in the SoCon next season. Look for his game to flourish over the next couple of seasons at Samford should he choose to stick around Homewood.  He will have three years of eligibility remaining. 

Rounding out the transfer portal additions for the Bulldogs entering the 2025-26 season will be 6-7 forward and Queens graduate transfer Jaxson Pollard. 

Pollard is even a little more athletic and aggressive when taking the ball to the basket than maybe Bjornstad is, however, he is very much the same type "glue guy" and does many of the unenviable hard things necessary to enhance winning, and is a player that has what coaches like to refer to as "winning DNA". 

Like former Bulldogs point guard Rylan Jones, Pollard hails from the great state of Utah, and should compete for a spot right away as a starter. He is versatile in that he can play the No. 3 or No. 4 spot, but will most likely play the small forward position for Samford in 2025-26. 

In his final season at Queens, Pollard made appearances in 31 games, averaging 8.0 PPG, 4.9 RPG and 1.3 APG off the bench for the Royals. He posted a pair of double-doubles during the season, as he finished with double-doubles in games against both Coastal Carolina (12 pts, 10 rebs), as well as Eastern Kentucky (16 pts, 10 rebs). He scored a career-high 17 points against the Acuff-led Lipscomb Bisons in the in Atlantic Sun Semifinals last March. 

Overall, Acuff and staff has put together a nice group from the portal and each will have a new role on a new team and other than Lamey and Faulkner, will have a new staff to get to know and learn from. 

A lot is new for Samford, but the standard of expectation established by Acuff's predecessor Bucky McMillan, which is one that involves winning now rather than rebuilding for the future, is very much a mentality of the administration and the fanbase, and Acuff has put together a group from the portal that has the potential to compete atop the lead right away.

Freshman Additions:

The Bulldogs have some talented players that they have also signed from the high school ranks, and many of which are looking to come in and make an impact from the outset of their careers. The Bulldogs were able to secure the signing of three talented guards that will have a chance to be impact players as soon as the 2025-26 season for Acuff's Bulldogs.

JD Gossett (Huntsville HS), Cooper Davenport (Henderson HS), and Isaiah Campbell-Finch (Tampa Catholic) represent a talented a recruiting haul for Acuff and staff in their first season at the helm in Homewood. 

Campbell-Finch was an especially good find for the new staff, and the 5–11-point guard signed with the Bulldogs among eight offers, which he held coming in. 

Campbell-Finch is listed as a three-star recruit, accoding to 247Sports, choosing to play for the Bulldogs over the likes of Charlotte, Cleveland State, Dayton, Furman, Florida Gulf-Coast, Jacksonville, and Kent State.

Not only was Campbell-Finch recruited by Furman but also played alongside current Paladin guard Eddrin Bronson during his time at Tampa Catholic.  During his final season at Tampa Catholic, Campbell-Finch ended up averaging 17.8 PPG and 4.9 APG. He will have a chance to compete for the starting point guard spot during the off-season and preseason camp, as it wouldn't appear Acuff will redshirt any players this season. 

Cooper Davenport is a 6-0 combo guard that comes to Samford from Henderson County High School in Henderson Kentucky. Davenport is another solid find for Acuff and staff, as he brings versatility into the fold for the Bulldogs with the ability to play either point guard or shooting guard. 

Davenport is an excellent shooter from any spot on the floor and was a career 40% shooter from three-point range in his prep career at Henderson. One of Davenport's primary strengths other than his elite shooting ability on the offensive end of the floor, is his ability as an on-ball defender. That, more than any other strength in his individual game, will give him the opportunity to play immediately. 

Rounding out the commitments for Acuff and staff in their first season as the head coach in Homewood is 6-5 guard JD Gossett out of Huntsville, AL, and Gossett had originally committed to Acuff last summer at Lipscomb and has since decided to join Acuff at Samford. He will give the Bulldogs a little size at the point, and he will be in the mix along with Campbell-Finch and others from the portal like Jadin Booth. 

Whatever the case, a player like Gossett will give Acuff and staff the added luxury of going with a bigger lineup and an ability to create potential matchup issues for the opposition. 

The trio of guards will help supplement the style of play for Acuff and staff, which is utilizing highly-skilled players that can shoot and cut effectively in a Princeton-like  motion offense, which will closely resemble conference rivals Furman and Chattanooga. 

Early 2025-26 Outlook:

Samford is a program structured to now compete right away even when they lose a head coach to a power conference and almost an entire roster to the transfer portal. 

Two people a,mong several are to thank for such fortunes, and they are former head coach Bucky McMillan for showing what Samford could do with some dedication, style of play and rabid support from the student-based fan support. Sometimes that student support, however, can be fickle. The other man to thank is Director of Athletics Martin Newton, for both thinking outside the box and having a vision to see what others could not. 

Another thing that has made Samford among the most successful in mid-major basketball over the past few seasons is the willingness to spend money with the advent of the transport era, having spent the most on the talent brought in last season, and while it didn't lead to a repeat title run as so many had predicted the Bulldogs to do last season, the spending of that money still helped Samford put together its second-best season in school history off a campaign that saw the Bulldogs have to replace massive production and a total of four starters. 

Finally, as important as signing a good class from the portal and from the high school ranks, Acuff also had to assemble a coaching staff in his first season as the head coach of the Bulldogs. 

He didn't have to look far from home to find one of those assistants, in his son, Will Acuff, as he spent last season as an assistant coach at NCAA Division II Montevallo, which is also located in Alabama. Will Acuff will serve as the Bulldogs' recruiting coordinator for the Bulldogs this season.

Set serve as the top assistant on Acuff's staff will be a familiar face, as associate head coach Tyler Murray is set to be reunited with Acuff in Homewood after having spent the previous five years in Nashville alongside Acuff at Lipscomb. Murray was elevated to the associate head coach position prior to the 2024-25 season.

Prior to making his way to Lipscomb some five years ago, Murray was part of Bob Richey's staff for two years at Furman, helping the Paladins to a 25-8 mark in the 2018-19 season, which included wins over reigning national champion and No. 8 Villanova (W, 76-68 OT) and at Final Four participant Loyola-Chicago (W, 70-68), which was good enough to garner the Paladins an at-large invite to the NIT.  

Many thought Murray would be the primary candidate to replace Acuff as the head coach at Lipscomb, however, Kevin Carroll would be hired out of nearby Trevecca Nazarene.

Acuff's former player--Kip Owens--will also be reunited with Acuff, as Owens played at University of Alabama-Huntsville from 2014-18, and he comes to Homewood from Greenville, where he spent one season at Furman, helping the Paladins to a 25-10 record, which included three wins over the Bulldogs.

Prior to his one season at Furman, Owens helped out as a key assistant for the Flagler Saints for four seasons, which included helping the Saints to the Peach Belt regular-season and tournament titles in 2020-21, as well as an appearance in the NCAA Division II Final Four, as the Saints finished 18-3 overall and 11-1 in Peach Belt play in what was a season altered by COVID-19.

Rounding out the staff for Acuff in his first season at Samford will be Peyton Mattingly, who will serve as the Chief of Staff, as well as Thomas Owen, who will serve as the Director of Basketball Operations for the Bulldogs.

So what should we expect from Samford in the 2024-25 season?  Expect the Bulldogs to be a contender near the top of the league, however, it's likely the Bulldog won't be quite as talented of a team as they were last season. That said, they will be every bit as well-coached, and that should see them make some waves in the league in Acuff's first season as the head coach. 

Starters Lost: (5) G-Trey Fort (transferred to Michigan State), F-Jaden B rownell (transferred to Southern California), G-Rylan Jones (out of eligibility), G-Josh Hollloway (transferred to Texas A&M), F-Collin Holloway (out of eligibility)

Others Lost: (6) C- Riley Allenspach (transferred to George Mason), G-Lukas Walls (transferred to Radford), Julian Brown (transferred to Niagara), F-Hamed Olayinka (transferred to UConn), G-Isaiah West (transferred to Belmont), G-Owen LaRocca (transferred to Indiana State)

Best Returning Player: G-Zion Wilburn or F-Caleb Harrison

Potential Breakout Player in 2024-25: G-Zion Wilburn

Best Transfer Portal Get: G-Jadin Booth (Florida Southern)

Best Freshman Addition:  G-Isaiah Campbell-Finch 

Overall Portal/Recruiting Synopsis and Grade: A

UNCG head ciach Mike Jones addresses his team

6. UNC Greensboro (20-12, 13-5/2nd in SoCon)-- The Mike Jones era has been outstanding if you limit it to the regular-season, however, for the fourth-straight season, the recipe from that regular-season success hasn’t carried over to a tournament setting at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville. For the fourth-straight season, including the second in a row as the No. 2 seed, the Spartans were bounced in their opening game of the tournament, as UNCG would suffer a 64-57 quarterfinal loss to VMI.

The disappointment of how things finished were evidently shown in the face of one of the league’s top coaches, in Jones, but fixing this issue for one of the up-and-coming coaches in mid-major basketball might require taking a hard look at how UNCG is doing things in the regular-season, and what they need to change as a staff.

Jones lost top assistant Donny Lind during the off-season, as Lind took the head coaching job at Mount St. Mary’s, where he would hit the ball out of the park in his first season as the Mountaineers’ head coach, taking the Mount to the Big Dance. That said, maybe reaching out to Lind during the off-season to ask what he did differently in his role as head coach at Mount St. Mary’s than he did with Jones when he was on staff with him at both Radford (2016-21) and UNCG (2021-24).

The coaching duo did help Radford to make the NCAA Tournament back in 2018, but ever since getting into the Southern Conference, despite consistently being one of the most successful teams in the SoCon in three of his first four seasons as head, including back-to-back second-place finishes, a third-place finish and sixth-place finish in the league’s overall standings at the end of the regular-season in his four years as the head coach of UNCG.

Asking Lind for advice or insight from an outsider’s perspective might take some humility but knowing Jones like I do and knowing the type of Christian man he is, I don’t think ego has ever been an issue with him, which is why I have the utmost respect for him as a head coach. He’s the right kind of leader, and that is sometimes the hardest part for head coaches. The other thing I really appreciate about Jones as a head coach is his authenticity as a head coach and candidness.

Part of UNCG’s lack of success in the tournament might have something to do with a perennial lack of support from a fan base that never has matched the standard and elite level established by the teams it puts on the floor in the conference tournament each season. That is something that Jones cannot control or really fix.

With that said, if Jones and the Spartans ever figure out how to duplicate regular-season success and turn it into success in Asheville, then the Spartans might create a new SoCon dynasty like the one it was approaching before Wes Miller left to become the head coach at Cincinnati following the 2020-21 season.

Jones has gotten a lot right, which is why he’s won 20 or more games in each of the past three seasons, including helping the Spartans routinely post one of the top defensive units in college basketball. This season, the Spartans once again led the league and ranked among the national leaders in both scoring defense (65.4 PPG/25th in scoring defense) and field goal percentage defense (39.9%/15th in field goal pct defense).

That said, the Spartans must one again find reinforcements sooner rather than later if they want to maintain their status as one of the SoCon's top dogs, and once again, Jones and his staff have delivered a strong response to losing quite a bit of offensive production for a second-straight season.

Heading into the 2024-25 season, many lacked the confidence that the Spartans could keep the ball rolling under Jones after losing the likes of Mikeal Brown-Jones, Keyshawn Langley and Kobe Langley were lost either to the portal or being out eligibility, as the Spartans were selected to finish sixth overall in the SoCon standings in the preseason. 

The Spartans responded by finishing second in the league standings for the second year in a row and finished in the top three of the league standings for the third-straight season. But that hasn't been good enough in Asheville, and while the Spartans have done a nice job of adding to the immediate production lost to transfer or graduation, but UNCG has had trouble building adequate depth to endure the latter portions of the season, and by the time the Spartans reach Asheville, they look like a different version of themselves,  and usually much different than the team we see at the end of January. That's not a good thing. 

This time around, Jones must replace his five top scorers from a year ago, including the Spartans' top two players and two of the top players in the SoCon to the transfer portal, in both Donovan Atwell (transferred to Texas Tech) and Kenyon Giles (transferred to Wichita State), as well as guard Ronald Polite III, who is out of eligibility.

Atwell and Giles were joined in the transfer portal by forward Muon Reath (transferred to San Diego), and forward Jalen Breath (transferred to Ohio) were some that opted to part ways with UNCG following the Spartans' 64-57 SoCon quarterfinal loss to VMI in Asheville. 

With so much to replace, Jones has gone about meeting the challenge head on just like he has been successful at doing in the past, and he has brought in some pretty good talent so far, and it will be likely that I will have to come back and add to the UNC Greensboro portion of this article at a later date, as Jones and the Spartans likely are not finished adding talent from both the portal and the high school ranks as of yet. 

Along with those who have departed to the transfer portal, guards Akrum Ahemed, Ronald Polite III, Joryiam Saizounou and forwards Malik Henry, Miles Jones and Demetrius Davis Jr. are also out of eligibility, leaving Jones and his staff nearly needing to start completely from scratch heading into the 2025-26 season.

The lone returnees off last year's roster in the paint include  Lithuanian Domas Kauzonas and Clifton Efinda, who hails from Ireland and walked on to the team prior to the 2024-25 season. 

Team identity has always been important to Mike Jones, and even prior to that with his teams at Radford. Team identity, too, has been an important element of UNCG teams coached by Wes Miller even before Jones showed up to take over the reins of the successful mid-major and Southern Conference hoops program.

The Spartans staff have managed to bring in players from both the JUCO circuit, as well as in the transfer portal. The Spanish influence has meant a lot to UNCG basketball a lot in the past, as few will forget what Francis Alonso did for the UNCG hoops program in four years suiting up for the Blue and Gold.

While it won't be a guard that hails from Spain coming to UNCG this season to offer assistance, it will be one will add some immediate assistance to the front court, in 6-7 forward Valentino Pinedo, who comes to UNCG with one more year of eligibility remaining from Madrid. 

The product of Spain spent his previous three seasons of college basketball playing at Saint Francis, where he helped the Red Flashes make the 2025 NCAA Tournament and Pinedo would end up making 25 starts in the 28 games he saw action in last season. The Red Flashes would end up losing their opening-round clash, 70-68, to Alabama State. 

In the 2024-25 season, he was a double-figure producer for the Red Flashes, as he averaged 10.6 PPG and 6.5 RPG, and Pinedo finished the season as an impressive 57.8% shooter from the field (118-of-204). Pinedo found his way into double figures on 16 occasions last season, and that included four double-doubles. 

Pinedo's best performance of the 2024-25 season came in a 79-74 loss to Stone Hill, as he posted a career-high 24 points on an impressive 11-of-13 shooting performance from the field. He also added seven rebounds in the loss. 

Interestingly, Pinedo prepped at the same program (Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas) that produced Furman's star center Cooper Bowser. Pinedo will be an immediate contributor for the Spartans this season and will come in with an opportunity to start. His skill-set and his physical nature should fit the UNCG identity, as well as making him an effective player in the SoCon his final season of eligibility. 

In the backcourt, the Spartans added 6-5 University of Albany combo guard Justin Neely, who like Pinedo, will have one year of eligibility remaining. During his final season with the Great Danes, Neely logged action in 30 games, including having 10 starts and easily turned in his best season to-date, as he averaged 11.5 PPG, 7.1 RPG and 1.5 APG, averaging 25.6 MPG in 2024-25, helping the Great Danes to a 17-16 overall record, which included a fourth-place finish in the nine-team America East standings. 

Individually, Neely also finished the season with a career-best 21 steals, having posted just 18 steals combined in his 35-career games prior to the 2024-25 season.

Like Pinedo, Neely is a hard-nosed player that has a lot of grit but isn't going to be much of a threat from beyond the arc, having connected on just 10-of-60 shots from three-point range (16.7%) in his career. Neely finished the season with 17 double-figure scoring performances, including three games in which he scored 20 or more points. 

In his final season with the Great Danes, Neely enjoyed his best performance against Maine in what was a 79-68 win for Albany, as Neely led the way with a career-high 29 points to go with 11 rebounds and added three steals to the cause. He finished off the win against the Black Bears by going an impressive 11-for-16 from the field. 

Along with Neely, head coach Mike Jones also has added a pair of talented point guards from the JUCO ranks, adding both 6-2 Jordan Brown (Gaston College/Pebblebrook HS/Mableton, GA) and 6-0 Landon King (Brunswick Community College/West Charlotte HS/Charlotte, N.C.). 

Both Brown and King will have three years of eligibility remaining due to the NCAA's new eligibility rules regarding NJCAA transfers, as two years spent at the JUCO level now allows you to retain one of those years towards NCAA Division I eligibility status with an appropriate waiver. 

Brown started 27 of 29 games in his final season for the Gaston College, finishing out the 2024-25 season averaging 13.7 PPG, 4.4 APG and 4.2 RPG, playing point guard for the Rhinos. He finished the season shooting 39.4% (129-of-327) from the field and 38.1% (59-of-155) from three-point land. 

Brown was one of the major reasons that the Rhinos were able to a record-setting season in 2024-25, helping Gaston College to a 22-8 finish, which included a school-record 17-straight wins, and Brown's 13.7 PPG and 4.4 APG were both team-leading stats. The 22-8 overall mark was the third-best record in program history. 

The 6-2 guard is a great athlete and has the ability to create his own shot off the dribble. Brown appears to be the latest in a line of transfer guards that possesses the athleticism and this of creativity of the dribble, and that includes players like former transfer guards like De'Monte Buckingham, Keondre Kennedy and most recently, Kenyon Giles, to possess this ability.

Competing with Brown for the right to start next season will be 6-0 Landon King, who hails from West Charlotte, and like Brown, comes to UNCG off a strong final season as a JUCO, averaging 13.7 PPG and 3.6 RPG, making 32 starts in 33 games in the 2024-25 season at Brunswick Community College.

King will also be in contention for a starting spot at the point guard spot for the upcoming season and is a quick point guard with good ball-handling capabilities, as well as possessing the ability to create his own scoring chances or opportunities for others off the dribble, as he his a solid distributor. 

He scored 20 or points on four occasions last season, including posting season and career-highs of 24 points on a pair of occasions, while finding his way into double figures 21 times in 33 games last in 2024-25. King completed the 2024-25 season connecting on an impressive 39.2% (85-of-217) from three-point land last season, while finishing the campaign connecting on 43% (161-of-374) of his overall shots from the field. 

The biggest addition during the recruiting process from the transfer portal so far might be one of UNCG's latest signees from the portal, in Donald Whithead Jr., who would be penciled in to be the starter at the point guard spot coming into the season. 

Whithead Jr. comes to UNCG from California University of PA and will have one season of eligibility remaining as a graduate transfer. The 5–10-point guard started all 26 games for the Vulcans, finishing the season averaging 19.4 PPG, 3.8 APG and 2.5 RPG in his junior campaign. 

The diminutive Whitehead Jr. has the potential to be an elite scorer in the SoCon, and he might need to be with the Spartans having to replace so much scoring that it has lost from a year ago. Whitehead Jr. He enjoyed his best game of his career against Slippery Rock last season, posting a career-high 33 points in what was an 86-73 win for the Vulcans.

Overall, Mike Jones and staff are still working in both the portal and in the high school ranks to procure talent to help replace all that was lost following another 20-win campaign for the Spartans. 

Freshman Additions:

Two important additions ave been secured from the high school ranks, in 6-4 combo guard KJ Younger from Matthews, N.C., by way of Weddington High School, as well as 6-7 shooting guard Assane Mandian from Saly, Senegal by way of the NBA Academy of Africa.

Younger averaged 25 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 2.9 APG and 1.8 SPG for the 2024-25 campaign. He was an impressive 57% (248-of-434) from the field during his senior season at Weddington, as well as shooting 34% (34-of-129) from three-point range in his senior season. He shot 72% (159-of-229) from the charity stripe.

Younger is a good athlete with a smooth game and jump shot. He also possesses good athleticism and will have a chance to crack the rotation this coming season. He was rated as a three-and-a-half star recruit by verbalcommitts.com and rated as a three-star prospect by 247Sports.

Manadian is more a project talent with the opportunity to see his talents developed at the NBA Academy in Africa translate to the American game. He brings a good talent-base and solid all around skill, as the 6-6 shooting guard also has the ability to play the three position. 

The 194-lb product has excellent length and has the ability to affect the game on the defensive end of the floor with that length. That ability on the defensive end along with his overall athleticism will give him a chance to see the floor sooner rather than later for the Spartans. 

Look for UNCG to potentially add one or two more freshman signees before the summer is over but will likely look most to the transfer portal and talent that can be immediately available and ready to go as soon as this coming season.

Early 2025-26 Outlook:

Much like last summer, it's hard to get a good gauge on how it will all come together for Mike Jones' UNCG team in the 2025-26 season, as they will once again relying heavily on additions from the transfer portal to replace massive losses in terms of offensive production.

That led to a majority of the media picking the Spartans sixth in the preseason last season, and the Spartans would easily exceed those expectations with another second-place finish in the final regular-season league standings.

Once again, however, UNCG's performance in Asheville turned out to be a performance that for many, would leave a sour recollection of the season for many fans and media and it overshadows what was another solid 20-win campaign for UNCG. Until UNCG can find a way to crack the code in Asheville, and develop depth, people are going to continue to say UNCG is a good "regular-season" team.

I expect as talented as a coach as Jones and his staff are, that  they will figure that out in the very near future. There's still a lot of work to be done recruiting from the portal over the remainder of the summer for Jones and staff, so it's hard to once again gauge where the Spartans might fall in the overall pecking order as far as the 2025-26 order of finish is concerned in the SoCon. 

Starters Lost: (5) G-Ronald Polite III (out of eligibility), G-Kenyon Giles (transferred to Wichita State), G-Donovan Atwell (transferred to Texas Tech), F-Demetrius Davis (out of eligibility), Jalen Breath (transferred to Ohio)

Others Lost: (7) G-Isaiah Washington (transferred to Northern Illinois), F-Muon Reath (transferred to San Diego), F-Malik Henry (out of eligibility), Miles Jones (out of eligibility), G-Joryiam Saizonou (out of eligibility), G-Akrum Ahemed (out of eligibility),  G-Mason So (transferred to Mount St. Mary's)

Best Returning Player: F-Domas Kauzonas

Potential Breakout Player in 2024-25: N/A

Best Transfer Portal Get: G-Donald Whithead Jr. 

Best Freshman Addition:  G-KJ Younger 

Overall Portal/Recruiting Synopsis and Grade: B+/still in-progress

The third part of this series of portal updates for SoCon hoops I hope to have completed later this month, as I will be taking a look at the final four teams (VMI, Mercer, Western Carolina and The Citadel) in the league and portal additions before making some early predictions, while ranking both the portal classes and freshmen recruiting hauls 1-10 in part four.

Also in part four, I will rank the top 15 recruits brought in from the portal and that have the potential to be breakout players in 2025-26, while final looking at an early predicted order of finish. Also, keep an eye out for an article coming soon on Timmons Arena, with that article to be both on SoConhoopsreport.com as well as at mid-major madness.

With the advent of NIL and transfer portal recruiting, along with attempting to put together an in-depth season review of SoCon hoops 2024-25, coverage of Southern Conference hoops has now become a year-round endeavor for me. 

That hasn't always been the case, but the past two years it has required more time and dedication to the task. Seeing that I also cover SoCon football, it can make for a more jam-packed offseason of writing than in previous years. It's almost crazy how much things have changed in a short window. It was just five years ago that we had the COVID-19 pandemic to deal with, and content was always in limbo because we really didn't know when competition would start back, although always knowing it eventually would.

Now recruiting from the portal and NIL demand such attention that there is never a shortage of content, and there's so much to cover with most teams in the league bringing in such large recruiting hauls, so bear with me over the remainder of the summer. I plan on having all the hoops content out there for you to peruse by August, as we wind down the summer and speedily head towards what promises to be another exciting season of SoCon hoops in 2025-26.