By: Jake Renie, Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
MOUNT BERRY, Ga. – The Centre men's basketball team are on their way south for the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Tournament, the Colonels facing off against top-seeded Berry on Sunday. The Gold & White will play as the eighth seed in the tournament this weekend, looking to upset the Vikings in the Sunday, Feb. 19 matchup.
Freshman
Cade Stinnett led the Colonels in scoring in the regular season, averaging 18 points per game and starting all 24 contests throughout the year. He also tied junior
Chez Moore in the team's rebounding efforts, both student-athletes averaging 5.3 rebounds per game.
Carter Baughman was the only other player that averaged a double-figure score, the Colonels' leading three-point shooter posting 10.1 points per game. Centre compiled 1636 points throughout the season, averaging 68.2 per game.
The Vikings will provide a strong competition for the Gold & White, Berry hosting the round as the no. one-seed in the conference with a 14-0 SAA record this season. The held the second-best scoring average in the conference (81 ppg) while posting the top defense among the eight teams in the league (67.3 ppg). The Vikings are led by Chase Ellis, averaging 15 points across the team's 25 games.
The two programs met twice in the regular season, Centre falling in both contests. Most recently the Colonels hosted the Vikings in Alumni Gymnasium for Senior Day, the Gold & White outscoring Berry in the second half of the contest. Centre would surge in scoring after bolstering their shooting percentage to 51.52-percent from the field in the second half alone, including four baskets behind the three-point line.
Marshall Taylor had kicked off that half with two layups in less than two minutes, the Gold & White later going on a 7-0 scoring run that include five points from
Blake Stewart.
Centre will look to pull their successes in the second half of the team's home-finale against Berry in their upcoming quarterfinal matchup. Centre did have some standout performances in the conference during the regular season, Stinnett garnering an SAA Player of the Week award after breaking a freshman scoring record against Rhodes back in the first week of January. He scored 38 points off 12-17 shooting from the field in the 82-72 win.
Noah Ring also was a key factor in the win over the Lynx, registering 35 minutes and 14 points overall in the game.
The Colonels will look to start the conference tournament at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 19 on Berry's home court. You can find the Vikings' ticket information
here and everything else you need to know about the SAA Men's Basketball Tournament
here.
