ATHENS, Ohio – Taking a brief one-game pause from conference play, the App State Men's Basketball team (14-9, 8-4 SBC) embark to Athens, Ohio, to take part in the second leg of the MAC-SBC Challenge, facing the Ohio Bobcats (12-10, 6-4 MAC) at the Convocation Center on Saturday. This will be the third meeting between the Mountaineers and Bobcats. Tipoff from Athens is slated for 2 p.m. and the contest can be streamed on ESPN+.
Saturday will mark App State's 12th and final nonconference game of the 2024-25 regular season. Entering the matchup with the Bobcats, App State is 6-5 against out-of-conference foes. The Mountaineers have played one of the toughest nonconference schedules in the Kerns era this season as six of App State's nine Division I nonconference opponents have at least 15 wins and eight of the nine teams sit in the top five of their conference's standings as of Saturday. Additionally, the Mountaineers have played against the No. 21 Wisconsin Badgers (Nov. 10) and three teams ranked in the most recent Mid Major Top 25 poll (High Point, UNCW and Miami (Ohio)).
With the win over Southern Miss on Wednesday, the Mountaineers have now won eight consecutive games in the month of February and 10 of their last 11 February games overall. Of the team's eight consecutive wins in February, the Mountaineers have won by double digits in four of them. Since Kerns took over the program in 2019, App State is 22-18 in games played in February.
Taking part in the MAC-SBC Challenge's second edition of the 2024-25 season, App State enters play in Ohio with a 1-2 record since the challenge's inception at the beginning of last season. The Mountaineers' lone win in the MAC-SBC Challenge came last February in Boone over Toledo in a game that saw the Black and Gold score 109 points in a double-overtime affair. App State's 109 points scored against the Rockets was the 22nd-highest scoring output in a game in program history.
The Matchup
- Who: App State at Ohio
- Where: Convocation Center // Athens, Ohio
- When: Saturday, Feb. 8 // 2 p.m.
Tune In
- Watch: Watch (ESPN+) | Sam Hyman (PxP), Dave Cecutti (Color), Jason Preston (Color), Taniah Stephens (Sideline)
- 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
Although it fell behind by three points after a Southern Miss steal and a slam by Denijay Harris, App State rebounded and scored the game's final five points to close out its three-game home swing with a 60-58 win over the Golden Eagles on Wednesday. Heroics by
Dior Conners to tie the game at 58 apiece with 38 seconds to play, followed by a fierce two-handed dunk by
CJ Huntley won the Mountaineers the game at the buzzer.
Senior point guard
Myles Tate did something that few Mountaineers have ever done on Wednesday, as he recorded a career-best 11 assists, his second game this year with double-digit assists. As of Saturday, only 15 other players in program history have recorded a game with at least 11 assists. Only Tate and Marshall's Dezayne Mingo have recorded more than one game this season with at least 10 assists in the Sun Belt Conference entering Saturday.
App State allowed just two made Southern Miss 3-pointers in Wednesday's win, the fewest it has allowed all season. It was the seventh time this season that the Mountaineers have allowed fewer than five 3-pointers made against them. Additionally, the Mountaineers held the Golden Eagles to an 11 percent mark from the 3-point line, marking the lowest 3-point percentage allowed by App State this season.
Scouting the Mountaineers
App State heads into Saturday's game against the Bobcats with a 14-9 record overall and an 8-4 conference record. App State sits in a five-way tie for second place in the Sun Belt standings entering Saturday, with all five teams trailing by a game to Arkansas State. Since Jan. 4, App State is outscoring its opponents by 84 points, good for an average of 8.4 points a game.
Stifling defense has continued to be the story for App State this season as they enter play on Saturday with the Sun Belt's second-best scoring defense and the nation's 14th-best scoring defense, allowing just 63.3 points a game. The Mountaineers have let just six opponents eclipse 70 points against them this season and have kept 13 of their last 15 opponents below 70 points. Since Jan. 4, App State is allowing just 60.6 points a game. In Sun Belt play, the Mountaineers are allowing 61.9 points per contest, the second-best mark in the league.
The Mountaineers have been especially stellar at defending the three this season, keeping their opponents to just 156 made threes on 554 attempts, which is good for a 28.2 percent mark. App State boasts the fifth-best 3-point defense in the country as of Saturday. The Mountaineers have let only three opponents shoot over 40 percent from behind the arc against them this season and have held 14 opponents below 30 percent from the long line entering Saturday. Just 28.5 percent of App State's opponents' points have come from behind the arc this season, which is the seventh-best clip in the country according to KenPom.
One of the best duos in the conference resides in Boone, N.C., as both Tate and Huntley head into Saturday's game against the Bobcats in the top 10 in the league in scoring. Between the two players, they have combined to score every 20-point game by a Mountaineer this season (15) and 35 of App State's 63 10-point outings. The last App State duo to each average at least 15 points a game over a full season was Justin Forrest and Ronshad Shabazz in the 2018-19 season (16.2 and 18.3 points a game, respectively).
Scouting the Bobcats
After winning its first four conference games to start the year, Ohio enters play on Saturday having lost four of its last six games. The Bobcats come into the game against App State off a 25-point over Western Michigan at home on Tuesday. Overall, the Bobcats are 12-10 and boast a 6-4 conference record.
The Bobcats boast a decorated men's basketball history as they have made the NCAA Tournament 14 times in their program's history, most recently in 2020-21. Additionally, Ohio has claimed 10 MAC regular-season titles and has won the MAC Tournament seven times. Ohio has won at least 19 games each of the past three seasons.
Entering play on Saturday, the Bobcats are 9-1 at home, which trails only Akron and Miami (Ohio) for the most home wins in the MAC. Since Jeff Boals became the head coach in 2019, the Bobcats are 70-15 at home.
Series History
For the first time since 2014, App State and Ohio will meet in Athens. It will be the third meeting between the two teams all-time, with the Bobcats holding a 2-0 edge in the series.
App State and Ohio first met on Dec. 27, 1991, in Casper, Wyo., at the Cowboy Shootout, which saw the Bobcats claim a 16-point win. Saturday's game will mark the first ever meeting between head coach
Dustin Kerns and Ohio head coach Jeff Boals. Kerns is 2-3 all-time against the MAC.
Entering Saturday, the Sun Belt leads the 2024-25 rendition of the MAC-SBC Challenge 8-4. The Sun Belt Conference has won 23 of the 36 games in the challenge and claimed the inaugural title last season.
Next Up
The Mountaineers continue their three-game road trip on Thursday with a trip to Conway, S.C., for the second meeting of the season with the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. Tipoff from the HTC Center is set for 7 p.m. and the contest can be streamed on ESPN+.
The 2024-25 men's basketball season is presented by Foscoe Companies.
