ESPNU Selects High Point at UNC Asheville as Feb. 2 Wildcard Game
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – ESPNU has selected the
High Point at UNC Asheville men’s basketball contest as its third Big South Wildcard broadcast of the 2022-23 season, it was announced today by the Big South Conference office. The game will move from its current Wednesday, Feb. 1 date to Thursday, Feb. 2 and will tip at 7:00pm inside Kimmel Arena in Asheville, N.C.
The match-up will mark the second meeting between the squads on ESPNU, as the first televised contest was Feb. 26, 2015 in Asheville and won by the visiting Panthers, 75-71. The upcoming Feb. 2 broadcast will be High Point’s ninth appearance in the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series, and 15th for Asheville.
The Bulldogs enter this week’s action tied for first-place in the Big South standings with a 7-1 league record and winners of six-straight. Asheville is led by Preseason Player of the Year
Drew Pember, who is averaging 20.3 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.3 blocked shots through eight Big South games.
Tajion Jones is the league’s active career leading scorer with 1,753 points, which is 22nd all-time in conference history, and he is approaching the Big South career records for games played (139) and minutes played (4,542). Jones is second in both categories with 135 games and 4,465 minutes.
High Point sits at 10-10 overall (2-6 Big South). The Panthers are the conference’s highest scoring team overall with 77.2 points, ranks third in the nation in fast break points (18.0), and features two of the Big South’s top eight overall scorers in
Jalen House (18.5) and
Zack Austin (13.5). Austin, a preseason All-Conference selection and the Big South Co-Freshman of the Year in 2021-22, is averaging 2.4 blocked shots in league play, and recently became just the fourth player all-time in the conference record book with 100 career three-pointers (106) and 100 career blocked shots (110).
This is the 10th year of the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series, which again features six Thursday broadcasts –- Jan. 12 (at UNC Asheville 54, Longwood 46), Jan. 26 (Longwood at Radford), Feb. 2 (High Point at UNC Asheville), Feb. 9, Feb. 16 and Feb. 23 -- that are selected 14-21 days in advance. A total of 42 games have been played in the series that began in 2013-14, and while the home teams are 29-13, the 42 games have been decided by an average of 8.88 points, with 26 of those being decided by single-digits (4.69 average margin in those contests).