Friday, March 7th, 8:00 p.m. (et)

FACTS & STATS: Site: North Charleston Coliseum (13,600) -- Charleston, South Carolina. Television: None. Home Record: The Citadel 6-10, Charleston 8-4. Away Record: The Citadel 0-12, Charleston 4-10. Neutral Record: The Citadel 0-1, Charleston 2-2. Conference Record: The Citadel 1-19, Charleston 9-11. Series Record: College of Charleston leads, 45-37.

GAME NOTES: The Citadel Bulldogs are the 11th-seed in the Southern Conference Tournament, and they will do battle with sixth-seeded College of Charleston tonight in the first round of the event. The winner of this contest will move on to Saturday's quarterfinal round to clash with third-seeded Georgia Southern. The Citadel have never won this event and is a woeful 10-54 all-time in SoCon Tournament games. With only one win in 20 league games during the regular season, the Bulldogs aren't expected to make any noise in this tournament. They have lost all 13 of their games away from home and are on a five-game overall losing skid. As for College of Charleston, it captured its lone Southern Conference Tournament championship back in 1999, and the program owns an 11-8 record at this event. The Cougars are two games below .500 both overall and in conference play despite closing out the regular season with back-to-back victories. College of Charleston won both of its meetings with The Citadel by double figures during the regular season, and the Cougars own a 45-37 advantage in the all-time series.

Like many other teams in the nation, The Citadel is led by a rookie. Cameron Wells, the SoCon Freshman of the Year, is scoring 14.6 ppg to go along with 5.1 rpg, 3.9 apg and 45 steals. Players such as Austin Dahn (11.9 ppg) and Zach Urbanus (10.6 ppg) are both solid offensive contributors, but neither is a likely candidate to take over a game at the offensive end of the court. The Citadel is last in the 11-team league in scoring defense, surrendering 74.6 ppg, and the Bulldogs are also dead last in scoring margin (10.6 ppg), field goal percentage defense (.496), rebounding margin (-7.8) and blocked shots. When taking all of those negatives into consideration, it is easy to understand why the squad enters this tournament as a huge underdog.

There are four double-digit scorers in the lineup for College of Charleston, and Andrew Goudelock leads the balanced group with 13.4 ppg on the strength of his 42.2 percent shooting from three-point range. Tony White Jr. checks in with 13.3 ppg, and Jermaine Johnson adds 11.3 ppg and 8.4 rpg. As for Dustin Scott, he rounds out the foursome with 10.4 ppg to go along with 6.6 rpg and 41 blocked shots. Charleston is scoring 72.6 ppg while yielding 73.1 ppg to the opposition. The Cougars are, by all accounts, an average team by SoCon standards, as they do not lead the league in any important statistical categories. While they do appear to be superior to The Citadel, as does every other team in the conference, the competition will get much stiffer if they find a way to win today.

Obviously, picking The Citadel to win this game would be foolish. Expect Charleston to pull away in the second half.

Predicted Outcome

College of Charleston 73, The Citadel 60