PENSACOLA, Fla. – Embarking on the Sun Belt Tournament after earning a triple bye to the fourth round, the App State Mountaineers are set to play their first game in Pensacola on Friday at the Pensacola Bay Center. App State earned the sixth seed in the tournament after finishing conference play at 10-8. The Mountaineers will take the floor first at 8:30 p.m. ET (7:30 p.m. CT). All games at the Sun Belt Tournament can be streamed on ESPN+ with the championship game also being broadcast on ESPN2.
App State (17-13, 10-8 SBC) will play either No. 10 Old Dominion or No. 7 Texas State on Friday night.
App State saw two players garner All-Sun Belt nods on Monday in
Myles Tate (First Team) and
CJ Huntley (Second Team). Tate's first-team selection marked the fifth time under Kerns that a Mountaineer has received first-team distinctions. Huntley was named to the second team, marking his first career postseason honors. Tate and Huntley's conference nods made them the 11th and 12th players to receive All-Sun Belt recognition under Kerns. App State tied with South Alabama, Arkansas State and James Madison for the most All-Sun Belt selections in the league.
For the fourth consecutive year, the Mountaineers finished the regular season as the Sun Belt's leader in scoring defense. App State has yet to finish outside of the top two in scoring defense under Kerns. The Mountaineers currently boast a top-15 scoring defense in the country.
Claiming an 18-point win on Feb. 13 over Coastal Carolina, the Mountaineers secured their sixth straight season with a winning percentage of .500 or better. It's the longest stretch of play without a losing season since 1946-52. App State is three wins away from posting its second straight 20-win season, something it has not done in consecutive years since posting three straight 20-win campaigns from 1997-2000.
The Matchup
- Who: App State vs. Old Dominion
- Where: Pensacola Bay Center // Pensacola, Fla.
- When: Friday, March 7 // 8:30 p.m. ET (7:30 p.m. CT)
Tune In
- Watch: Watch (ESPN+) | Matt Stewart (PxP), Victor Howell (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
Playing in its fifth nationally televised game since the start of last season, App State struggled to take care of the basketball in the first half, which helped the Marshall Thundering Herd pull ahead and claim a 75-57 win to close the regular season. It was the Mountaineers' largest loss since falling by 15 points at UNCW on Nov. 30.
Marshall started hot from the field in the opening frame on its senior night, going 43 percent from the field in the first half and drilling six threes. But the Herd also played smothering defense against the Mountaineers, forcing 15 App State turnovers, with 10 coming in the opening frame, which led to 25 Marshall points. Marshall's 25 points off App State's turnovers marked the most a Mountaineer opponent has scored in a game this season.
Myles Tate,
CJ Huntley and
Dior Conners each reached double figures against the Herd with Tate tallying 19 points to lead all scorers. Huntley tallied 11 points and 10 rebounds to mark his 10th double-double of the year and his fourth double-double in his last five games. Conners provided his team-leading 12th game of the season making at least three 3-pointers and poured in 11 points on four made field goals.
Scouting the Mountaineers
App State enters the Sun Belt Tournament reeling a bit as it has lost three of its last four games. The Mountaineers suffered their second-largest defeat of the season last Friday in Huntington against Marshall, falling by 18 points. Despite the team's recent play, the Mountaineers enter play at the tournament four games over .500 at 17-13. App State finished sixth place in the regular-season standings thanks to a 10-8 record in league play.
Stifling defense has continued to be the story for App State this season as they enter play on Friday with the Sun Belt's best scoring defense and the nation's 13th-best scoring defense, allowing just 63.6 points a game. The Mountaineers have let just nine of their 30 opponents eclipse 70 points against them this season and have kept 17 of their last 22 opponents below 70 points entering the tournament. App State enters play in Pensacola as the Sun Belt's leader in scoring defense for the fourth consecutive season.
Although they don't shoot a lot of threes (22.5 attempts per game), the Mountaineers boast one of the more efficient 3-point shooting percentages in the conference entering the tournament as App State is shooting the three at a 34.6 percent clip, which is good for the fourth-best mark in the Sun Belt Conference. If it holds, App State's 34.6 3-point shooting percentage would be the highest in the Kerns era and the best 3-point percentage since the 2018-19 season (35.9 percent).
App State's All-Sun Belt duo of Tate and Huntley pace the team offensively as the two combine to score 32.1 of App State's 68.2 points a game. Both players enter play in Pensacola averaging greater than 15 points a game (Tate scores 16.5 points and Huntley adds in 15.6 points). The last time two Mountaineers finished the season both averaging greater than 15 points a contest was the 2018-19 season when Ronshad Shabazz and Justin Forrest averaged 18.3 and 16.2 points a game respectively. Either Tate or Huntley have led the team in scoring in all but four games this season, and the two have combined to post every one of App State's 21 20-point games for the year.
App State at the Sun Belt Tournament
The Mountaineers earned a top 6 seed at the Sun Belt Tournament for the fourth time in
Dustin Kerns' six years this season. App State was the No. 1 overall seed at the tournament last year after claiming their first outright conference championship. App State will act as the No. 6 seed for the second time at the Sun Belt Tournament since 2019, last doing so in Kerns' first season. The Mountaineers defeated the 10th-seeded Coastal Carolina Chanticleers that year before falling to third-seeded Texas State in the quarterfinals.
App State has won at least one game at the Sun Belt Tournament in all but one year of the Kerns era. This includes winning four games in four days in the 2021 tournament to claim the program's third NCAA Tournament bid. Since Kerns took over the program, the Mountaineers are 7-4 at the Sun Belt Tournament. The only year App State hasn't won at least one game at the tournament was 2023 when South Alabama took down App State in its first contest.
Additionally, the Mountaineers have made it to the semifinals of the Sun Belt Tournament in three of the last four years under Kerns. App State claimed the crown in 2021 before making the semifinal round as the two seed in 2022. Last year, the Mountaineers earned the one seed and won their first game in overtime against Georgia Southern to advance to the tournament semifinals. The Mountaineers have advanced to at least the quarterfinal round in all but one season under Kerns (2023).
Next Up
With a victory on Friday, App State would take on the third-seeded Troy Trojans on Saturday for the second time this season. Troy was one of four teams to tie for the Sun Belt Conference crown this season. Tipoff for Saturday's matchup is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CT). All games of the tournament can be streamed on ESPN+ with the championship to be broadcast on ESPN2.
The 2024-25 men's basketball season is presented by Foscoe Companies.
