University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
ESPNU Selects Gardner-Webb at UNC Asheville as Feb. 6 Wildcard Game
01.28.2025 | Men's Basketball
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – ESPNU has selected the Gardner-Webb at UNC Asheville men's basketball contest as its third Big South Wildcard broadcast of the 2024-25 season. The announcement was made by the Big South Conference office on Tuesday (Jan. 28).
The game will be moved from its current Wednesday, Feb. 5 date to Thursday, Feb. 6, with tip scheduled for 9 p.m. inside Kimmel Arena.
The match-up marks the 17th ESPNU Wildcard game for Asheville since the beginning of the series 12 years ago. The Bulldogs did not host an ESPNU game last season but competed in one at Winthrop on Jan. 18, where the Bulldogs won 82-77. During the 2022-23 season, Asheville hosted two ESPNU contests in Kimmel Arena, the first against Longwood on Jan. 12, where the Bulldogs won 54-46, and the second against High Point, where the Bulldogs won 89-63 on Feb. 2.
The Feb. 6 will mark the third all-time "Wildcard" meeting between the squads on ESPNU. Gardner-Webb won the two previous nationally-televised meetings on Feb. 23, 2017 (81-76) and Jan. 17, 2022 (61-55). Last week, Asheville defeated Gardner-Webb, 61-53, on Jan. 22 in Boiling Springs.
UNC Asheville enters the week atop the Big South standings at 6-1 and is 15-6 overall. The Bulldogs have received votes in the Collegeinsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll in three of the last four weeks and carry a five-game win streak into Wednesday's home game vs. Radford. In Conference action, Asheville ranks first in turnover margin at +6.86 and is second with 84.4 points per game. Jordan Marsh is the top scorer in Big South games at 23.7 points, while Fletcher Abee is shooting 41.9 percent (18-of-43) from beyond the arc vs. league foes.
Gardner-Webb is tied for fifth in the conference at 3-4, and has suffered three of its four league losses by single digits. In the first meeting on Jan. 22, GWU held Asheville to its lowest point total in Big South play (61 points) and second-lowest field goal percentage of the 2024-25 season (36.4), while Darryl Simmons II scored a game-high 18 points. In Conference games, the Runnin' Bulldogs pace the circuit in field goal defense at 42.8 percent allowed as well as rebounds with 39.7 per outing. Simmons is tops in league play with 3.3 three-pointers per game, and is tied for sixth in scoring average with 15.7 points.
This is the 12th year of the Big South's ESPNU Wildcard series, which again features six Thursday primetime broadcasts –- Jan. 2 (at High Point 76, Radford 58), Jan. 16 (at Longwood 82, High Point 80), Feb. 6 (Gardner-Webb at UNC Asheville - 9:00pm), Feb. 13 (7:00pm), Feb. 20 (7:00pm) and Feb. 27 (7:00pm) -- that are selected 14-21 days in advance. A total of 55 games have been played in the series that began in 2013-14, and while the home teams are 35-20, the 55 contests have been decided by an average of 9.55 points, with 31 (56.4 percent) of those being decided by single-digits.
