BOONE, N.C. – After posting its 10th home win of the season on Thursday against Georgia Southern, the App State Men's Basketball team (17-10, 10-5 SBC) will close their home schedule on Saturday by welcoming the Marshall Thundering Herd (16-12, 9-6 SBC) to the Holmes Center. Saturday is senior day, and the Mountaineers will honor their five seniors pregame. Additionally, App State is set to retire Darryl Robinson's jersey at halftime, which will be the first jersey to be retired in App State Men's Basketball history. Tipoff from Boone against Marshall is set for 1 p.m. and the game can be streamed on ESPN+.
Darryl Robinson's jersey is set to go up into the rafters Saturday afternoon at halftime. It will be the first jersey retired in App State Men's Basketball History. Robinson was a crucial part of App State's first NCAA Tournament team in 1979 as he led the team in scoring and was the SoCon Tournament MVP of that season. Robinson was a two-time All-SoCon Second Team honoree in his career (1975-79) and a First-Team selection once. He led the team in scoring three of his four years as a Mountaineer. Robinson is eighth on App State's all-time scoring list with 1,631 career points.
The win over the Eagles on Thursday marked App State's 10th home win of the 2024-25 season, which is the program's fourth 10-win home season in a row. The Mountaineers haven't seen four straight 10-win seasons in the Holmes Center era. The last time App State posted four consecutive 10-win seasons at home was from 1996-2000 when Buzz Peterson's squads posted four straight.
Additionally, the Mountaineers tallied their 10th Sun Belt win on Thursday, marking the second straight season that the Mountaineers have won at least 10 league games. The last time App State recorded back-to-back seasons with at least 10 or more league wins was 2009-10 and 2010-11. The Mountaineers have recorded four 10-win seasons in conference play since Kerns took over the program in 2019.
The Matchup
- Who: App State vs. Marshall
- Where: Holmes Convocation Center // Boone, N.C.
- When: Saturday, Feb. 22 // 1 p.m.
Tune In
- Watch: Watch (ESPN+) | David Jackson (PxP), John Reisterer (Color)
- Listen: FLAGSHIP 97.3 (North Wilkesboro), 96.3 (Winston-Salem/Greensboro), 1350/96.1 (Asheville), 1250/103.9 (Marion), 790/93.7 (Johnson City) | Matt Present (PxP)
- Live Stats: appstatesports.com
Last Time Out
For the first time this season, App State played in overtime at the Holmes Center on Thursday. The Mountaineers used a strong run in the extra period to take control of the contest and won by five points, 79-74. App State's 8-0 run to open the overtime frame was all it needed to pull away for the close win in what was the third consecutive game with the Georgia Southern Eagles to be decided in overtime.
Both
CJ Huntley and
Myles Tate posted huge games as the duo combined to score 51 of the Mountaineers' 79 points. Tate tallied a game-best 26 points, one off his career high, and surpassed 1,000 career collegiate points late in the first half. Huntley finished with 25 points and 10 rebounds, marking his second straight double-double and eighth double-double of the season. It's the first time in the
Dustin Kerns era that two Mountaineers have scored at least 25 points in the same game.
Luke Wilson played a huge 18 minutes for App State in the game and closed out the contest with seven points, five rebounds and two blocks. Wilson was key in securing the win as his defensive presence stifled several Eagle shots in the overtime period.
Scouting the Mountaineers
App State comes into play on Saturday as one of the Sun Belt's hottest teams as it has won five of its last six contests and 11 of its last 14 overall. During that stretch, App State is outscoring its foes by 115 points (8.2 points per contest) and has tallied six double-digit triumphs. The Mountaineers enter play on Saturday in a three-way tie for second place and are one game behind a two-way tie for first place in the Sun Belt standings with three games to play in the regular season.
Stifling defense has continued to be the story for App State this season as they enter play on Saturday with the Sun Belt's best scoring defense and the nation's 13th-best scoring defense, allowing just 63.1 points a game. The Mountaineers have let just eight of their 27 opponents eclipse 70 points against them this season and have kept 15 of their last 19 opponents below 70 points. The Mountaineers enter play on Saturday having kept three of their last five opponents below 60 points.
The Mountaineers' 3-point defense has been among the best in the country as of Saturday as they keep their opponents to just a 28.5 percent mark from behind the arc (182-638). App State boasts the fifth-best 3-point defense in the country as of Saturday, bested only by No. 6 Tennessee, No. 2 Florida, San Francisco and Liberty. The Mountaineers have let only five opponents shoot over 40 percent from behind the arc against them this season and have held 15 opponents below 30 percent from the long line entering Saturday.
One of the best duos in the conference resides in Boone, N.C., as both Tate and Huntley head into Saturday's game in the top 10 in the league in scoring. Tate leads the way, averaging 16.8 points a game while Huntley scores 15.1 points a night. Tate is second in the Sun Belt in scoring while Huntley is eighth. No App State duo has ever finished a season with both in the top 10 in scoring in the Sun Belt era.
Scouting the Thundering Herd
Marshall enters Saturday in Boone with a 16-12 record under coach Jackson in his first year as head coach at his alma mater. The Herd have won nine Sun Belt games and sit a game out of the three-way tie for second place in the Sun Belt standings.
The Herd carries a high-scoring offense that scores at the second-best rate in the Sun Belt Conference as of Saturday. Marshall's 75.7 points-per-game average makes them one of just three teams in the league to average at least 75 points. Five different players enter Saturday averaging at least nine points a game for the Herd.
Defensively, Marshall is one of the best teams in the country at blocking shots as it boasts the 17th-highest blocks-per-game mark in NCAA Division I. Obinna Anochili-Killen comes into Saturday as the nation's second-leading shot blocker with 81 swats for the year. He is 39 blocks clear of second place in the SBC.
Series History
The Mountaineers and Thundering Herd are set to meet for the 55th time on Saturday and the first of two meetings against one another in the next six days. Marshall joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2022 after spending 16 years in the Conference USA. Before that, The Herd was a member of the Southern Conference where they were a conference rival of App State for 19 years (1977-96).
Marshall leads the all-time series 34-20, but the Mountaineers swept last season's series, tallying a 15-point win in Boone and a seven-point triumph on national TV at Marshall. Kerns is 2-3 against Marshall in his career, but he has never coached against Marshall's first-year head coach Cornelius Jackson.
Tate tallied one of the best games of his career at Marshall a season ago, scoring 25 points, which was his then-career high. Tate scored 18 of those points in the second half, helping the Mountaineers overcome a six-point halftime deficit. The senior has played in two games against the Herd in his career and has scored in double figures in both of them.
Next Up
App State will start its final road trip of the regular season on Tuesday with a rematch against the Georgia Southern Eagles in Statesboro. It will mark App State's first trip to the newly constructed Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center. Tipoff on Tuesday is set for 7 p.m. and the game can be streamed on ESPN+.
The 2024-25 men's basketball season is presented by Foscoe Companies.
