Samford Crowned Champions of the Southern Conference
On the third day of teams clinching automatic bids for the 2024 NCAA tournament, the Samford Bulldogs became the next team to clinch an automatic bid to March Madness as they defeated the East Tennessee State Buccaneers by a score of 76-69 to win the Southern Conference Championship on Monday night. While the Bulldogs got off to a hot start in this one as they were able to go up 11-2 shortly after just two minutes into the game the Buccaneers were able to come back and make the first half interesting as Samford would only head into the locker room with a two-point lead, up 40-38.
Once the second half started the Bulldogs would go on a 12-5 run to put themselves up 52-43 with nearly fifteen minutes remaining in the game. While the Buccaneers would try to make this game close and even cut the lead down to only one point for the Bulldogs with nearly six and a half minutes left in the second half of this one, Samford showed the game watcher they were indeed the better team, as they never lost their lead completely, hanging on to win this one by seven points in Asheville, NC. The Bulldogs were led by junior forward Achor Achor and senior forward Jermaine Marshall, who had 25 points, nine rebounds, and 23 points and eight rebounds, respectively.
While Samford will likely be a 13 seed in the NCAA tournament, they are without a doubt a team that could pull off an upset no matter what four seed they play in the first round. The Bulldogs' record going into the NCAA tournament this season is 29-5, 15-2 in conference play, and they were able to go on a 17-game win streak along the way so no matter how things go the rest of March, I don’t think anyone can argue that Head Coach Bucky McMillan and the Bulldogs underperformed this season. Samford will rejoice over their first-ever Southern Conference Championship win as they head into the tournament and try to get their first-ever NCAA tournament win as they have only been twice in 1999 and 2000, where they lost to St. John’s and Syracuse, respectively.
