Mercer Men’s Basketball Hosts Pivotal A-Sun Matchup with FGCU

MACON, Ga. (MERCER RELEASE) – First place in the Atlantic Sun Conference standings is on the line Thursday night at Hawkins Arena, as Mercer (15-5, 6-1 A-Sun) hosts league Co-Leader Florida Gulf Coast at 7 p.m.

Mercer looks to preserve an unbeaten home record and continue its home court dominance that has seen the Bears pile up a 40-4 record at Hawkins Arena over the last three seasons. The Mercer Athletics Department announced Monday that Thursday’s game is a Blackout, with all fans encouraged to wear black to show to support for the Bears.

SCOUTING FGCU

FGCU has won six of its last seven games and enters Thursday night’s contest at 12-8 (6-1 A-Sun). The Eagles are 3-6 on the road this season, including a 76-69 loss to Jacksonville in their last road game.

The Eagles return four starters and nine letterwinners from last year’s team that went 26-11 (13-5 A-Sun) and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles were picked to win the league in a preseason poll of A-Sun coaches, while junior Brett Comer, junior Bernard Thompson and senior Chase Fieler all picked up Preseason All-Conference honors.

Thompson, Comer and Fieler all average double-figure scoring and rank among the league’s top-12 scoring players. Thompson paces the team at 14.9 points per game, sixth best among league scoring leaders.

The Eagles are under direction of first-year head coach Joe Dooley, who signed on with the school after spending three seasons as an Assistant Coach at Kansas. Dooley has previously been a head coach at East Carolina, where he led the Pirates to a 69-60 record in four seasons.

FAST FACTS

Mercer is off to its best conference start in 11 years. If Mercer can defeat FGCU Thursday, the 7-1 start would mark the team’s best record through eight league games in program history.

Langston Hall dished 10 assists last time out, moving into fourth place among A-Sun career leaders in the stat. His 544 career assists is 69 short of the A-Sun record of 613 set by Napoleon Byrdsong of Centenary (1979-83).

Bud Thomas was named A-Sun Co-Player of the Week on Monday. He joins Langston Hall, Jakob Gollon and Ike Nwamu as players to receive conference weekly awards this season.

Since removing the faskmask he was forced to wear after breaking his nose on Jan. 30, Bud Thomas is averaging 22.0 points in three games. Thomas has shot 17-of-31 (54.8%) from 3-point range over that span.

Bud Thomas’ nine 3-pointers in Mercer’s last time out was a program single-game record, besting the record of eight that had been achieved five different times.