Men’s basketball travels to Hampton for series starting Saturday

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Following an eight-day layoff, the UNC Asheville men's basketball team returns to the floor on Saturday when it travels to Hampton to face the Pirates on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's contest will tip off at 3:00 p.m., with Sunday's game beginning at 1:00 p.m. Both games can be seen on ESPN+.

The Bulldogs were scheduled to host Presbyterian earlier this week, but the games were postponed due to COVID-related issues within the Presbyterian program. Asheville enters the weekend after a series split in Longwood to close out 2020, sitting at 4-5 overall and are a strong 3-1 in conference play. Hampton, who has lost three in a row to conference opponents, is 4-7 overall and 3-3 in Big South play. Saturday and Sunday will be the fifth and sixth straight road games for the 2020-21 squad.

Contributions throughout the lineup
Sharing the ball has been a calling card for the Bulldogs early, ranking second in the Big South with 14.6 assists per game. Lavar Batts, Jr. ranks fourth in the league with 3.9 assists per game, dishing out a career-best eight assists in the series-opening win against Longwood (December 30), while Trent Stephney is tied for sixth in that category with 3.8 per game. Ball movement is a major reason six players are averaging 7.6 points per game or more, while Asheville routinely uses around 10 players per contest. LJ Thorpe has started to find his groove of late, including an 18-point, five-assist performance in the December 30 win over Longwood, in which the junior scored all of his points in the last 10 minutes of the game. Graduate transfer Evan Clayborne, who leads the team in blocks (14), snagged a career-high 13 rebounds in the loss at Longwood on New Year's Eve.

Mr. Consistency
Tajion Jones continues to pour in the points, leading Asheville in scoring six times this season, including the last three games where he scored 18, 23, and 19 points, knocking down 14 threes in the process. The junior from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, ranks in the top 10 in all of Division I in made 3-pointers (35) and 3-pointers per game (3.89). Jones has knocked down at least three 3-pointers in all but one game this season, maintaining a 42.2 percent average from behind the arc (2^nd, Big South) and shooting 48.4 percent overall (3^rd, Big South) from the floor.

Scouting Hampton
Senior Davion Warren is the key to the Hampton offense, pacing the Big South with 19.3 points per game, being named Big South Player of the Week twice in the last two weeks. Russell Dean (11.8) and Chris Shelton (11.6) rank second and third on the team in scoring, while Edward Oliver-Hampton leads the Pirates with 7.7 rebounds per contest. Shelton can light it up from the outside, knocking down 36 treys in 11 games, shooting a league-best 48.6 percent from 3-point range. Hampton is a force on the defensive end, leading the nation with an average of 6.3 blocks per game and total blocks (69). One area Hampton struggles in is rebounding margin, with opponents grabbing 4.9 more per game.

Series History
It has been a young series between the two sides, with just three games being played head-to-head in the last two seasons. While Hampton has won all three of those contests, both matchups in 2019-20 were hotly contested, including an 88-86 nail biter in Kimmel Arena in January. LJ Thorpe dropped a career-high 31 points and grabbed nine rebounds, but the Bulldogs were edged by two. In last season's series finale, five Asheville players scored in double figures, with Thorpe leading the way with 17.

How to Follow
Matt White will have the play-by-play on ESPN+ for both games, with Joseph Walters serving as analyst on Saturday and Nathan Epstein serving as analyst for Sunday's game. Live stats for both games can be found at this link.