#ASunMBB Semifinals Tip in Hawkins Arena on CSS

The semifinal of the 2013 General Shale Atlantic Sun Men’s Basketball Championship are ready as No. 1 Mercer hosts No. 5 USC Upstate at 5:30 on CSS, while No. 2 FGCU and No. 3 Stetson cap the night at 8 on CSS.

No. 1 Mercer vs. No. 5 USC Upstate – 5:30 PM – CSS

• Mercer’s home winning streak now stands at 16 games as the Bears are 14-0 at home this season after claiming two home victories in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament last seson. The Bears are tied for seventh best in the nation.
• The No. 1 seed has won three of the last five conference championships and last two.
• The last host team to win the A-Sun Championship was Georgia State in 2001.
• Mercer’s Langston Hall has 992 career points. He averages 10.7 PPG. Hall would become the fifth A-Sun player this season to reach 1,000 career points and 146th in A-Sun history to reach the career mark.
• The Mercer – USC Upstate championship meeting is the first between a program from the states of Georgia and South Carolina.
• The Spartans picked up their first championship victory last night with a 14-point win vs. JU. USC Upstate was making only its second appearance in the tournament.
• Torrey Craig has 1,539 career points, which ranks 31st all-time in the A-Sun. He needs 19 points vs. Mercer to tie for 30th place. Craig averaged 25.5 PPG vs. Mercer in regular season meetings this year.
• The Spartans were the only upset of the quarterfinal round by defeating #4 seed Jacksonville. Five seeds are 6-10 all-time in semifinal contests.
• Ricardo Glenn is second in A-Sun for rebounding (8.0). He had seven in the quarterfinal vs. JU. Glenn averaged seven rebounds vs. Mercer in regular season.
• Ty Greene averages 12.6 PPG this season. Against Mercer, Greene averaged 17.5 vs. Mercer in their two meeting this year.

No. 2 FGCU vs. No. 3 Stetson – 8 PM – CSS

• FGCU is trying to become the first runner-up from the previous season to return to the title game the following year since Jacksonville in 2009.
• The Eagles’ 22 wins is a Division I program record; surpassing last year’s win total of 15, which was the previous record. FGCU’s win improvement of seven from the previous season is tied for 35th-best in A-Sun history.
• The last time two teams from the same state met in the A-Sun Semifinals was 2009 with Belmont and ETSU. This marks the first meeting in A-Sun Championship history that two teams from the state of Florida face off in the semifinals.
• Bernard Thompson, the A-Sun Defensive Player of the Year, has 91 steals, which ranks as the sixth-best single-season mark in A-Sun history. He needs two more to tie for fifth.
• Brett Comer’s 202 assists this season is the eighth-best in conference history.
• The Hatters’ 67-46 win yesterday vs. ETSU was the first in the program’s history since 2006 when sixth-seeded Stetson beat #3 FAU in quarterfinals.
• The Hatters own the top-scoring duo in conference; Adam Pegg (15.6) and Chris Perez (15.1), as well as the top-scoring trio; Pegg, Perez and Graham (11.5).
• Stetson is trying to advance to the program’s first A-Sun Championship Final since 1994. The last three seed to reach to championship final was Troy in 2003.
• Stetson’s Joel Naburgs has hit 180 career three pointers, which is fourth most among active A-Sun players. He has 55 three pointers this season; 13th most in the A-Sun.
• Stetson’s Adam Pegg was named the A-Sun Scholar-Athlete of the Year for owning a 3.39 cumulative GPA and posting four double-doubles this season.