Bucs back in action on Wednesday

The East Tennessee State University men's basketball team will be back in action again on Wednesday at 7 PM in the Mini Dome. The Atlantic Sun Conference leading Camels of Campbell University will come to town as the Bucs try to pull themselves into a tie with the Camels for the conference lead. Both teams spent the weekend in Nashville playing conference foes Lipscomb and Belmont. ETSU and Campbell were both able to knock off Lipscomb but the Bruins of Belmont began to turn their season around as they gained victories over the Camels on Thursday night and the Bucs on Saturday afternoon. The Bucs trailed by as much as thirty-two points during the course of the Belmont game but were able to close the margin to eleven by the end. In the Bucs' contest with Lipscomb, ETSU needed a last second three point shot by Jarvis Jones to win that game by two. Jonathan Rodriguez and Campbell had to battle Lipscomb right to the wire just like the Bucs and were able to secure the four point win with two free throws from Junard Hartley in the closing seconds. The Camels, unlike ETSU, were able to play close with Belmont for the majority of the game and closed the gap to one point with under two minutes to play but gave up four turnovers and missed one shot on their next five possessions to allow Belmont to escape with the win. During Campell's game with Belmont, Jonathan Rodriguez became the Camels all time leading scorer with 1948 points over the course of his collegiate career. He added another twenty-six points to that total in the win over Lipscomb. The Camels come into Wednesday night's game having won four of their last five games while the Bucs have been able to win only two of their last five.

In addition to Jonathan Rodriguez who is averaging 19.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, the Camels are led by Junard Hartley, the conference leader in assists, with 5.9 per game. Hartley also leads the league in steals and assist to turnover margin. Rodriguez will likely play an important role in this game but the key for the Bucs' may be in controlling Hartley to prevent him from being able to get his teammates involved on offense as well as protecting the ball from him so that he is unable to key the Camels' offense by creating turnovers. The Bucs are averaging just under fifteen turnovers per game while the Camels come into the game leading the conference and ranked sixth in the country in steals with 10.6 per game as a team. For the Bucs protecting the ball and limiting mistakes and turnovers on offense in this game should be a point emphasis.

For the Bucs, after splitting the pair of games in Nashville, this game looms even larger on the schedule. A loss to Campbell would drop the Bucs into a tie for third with Lipscomb and Belmont with rematches against those teams scheduled for the coming Saturday and Monday. If ETSU does not bounce back from the loss to Belmont, they could easily find themselves deep within the middle of the pack in the Atlantic Sun standings by the time Monday's game with Belmont in Johnson City is over. A sweep of these three games would enable the Bucs to put some distance between themselves and much of the rest of the conference pack.