ESPNU Selects High Point at Presbyterian as Feb. 26 Wildcard Game
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – ESPNU has selected the
High Point at Presbyterian men’s basketball contest as its fourth and final Big South Wildcard broadcast of the 2025-26 season, it was announced today by the Big South Conference office. The game will tip at 7:00pm inside the Templeton Center on the campus of Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C.
It will be the re-match of the Jan. 29 ESPNU Wildcard game between the squads, which High Point won, 84-81. In that contest,
Rob Martin led four Panthers in double-figures with 21 points, while
Jonah Pierce and
Triston Wilson paced the Blue Hose with 25 points each. The game featured 14 lead changes and eight ties, and no lead exceeded double digits. The Feb. 26 contest will be HPU’s regular-season finale and PC’s final home game of the year.
High Point enters this week 24-4 overall and riding an eight-game win streak while holding a half-game lead in the Big South standings at 12-1. The Panthers, who will appear on ESPNU this Thursday at home vs. UNC Asheville, have been ranked in the Collegeinsider.com Top 25 poll all year, and are the Big South’s top rated team in the NET (75) and KenPom (90). Through 13 conference games, High Point is the league leader in scoring (87.7 points), scoring margin (+15.4), free throw percentage (75.8), assists (15.5) and steals (11.2), while
Terry Anderson is sixth with 18.8 points against league foes.
Presbyterian is currently tied for fourth in the standings at 6-6, and is 13-14 overall. During the conference season, the Blue Hose are tops in field goal percentage with a 49.7 clip as well as fewest rebounds allowed per game (31.8), and rank third in three-point shooting (34.8 percent). Pierce is averaging a double-double in league action with 19.2 points and a Big South-best 10.6 rebounds.
This is the 13th year of the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series, which featured four Thursday primetime broadcasts –- Jan. 29 (at High Point 84, Presbyterian 81), Feb. 12 (UNC Asheville 79, at Longwood 74), Feb. 19 (UNC Asheville at High Point - 7:00pm) and Feb. 26 (High Point at Presbyterian - 7:00pm) -- that were selected 14-21 days in advance. A total of 61 games have been played in the series that began in 2013-14, and the home teams are 39-22 while the 61 contests have been decided by an average of 9.87 points, with 34 (55.7 percent) of those being decided by single-digits.