Conference Carolinas

Barton Voted Preseason Men’s Basketball Favorite

10/15/2012 12:00:00 AM

HIGH POINT, NC – The Barton College Bulldogs are coming off a 20-10 season where they finished 9-7 in league play before rolling to the Conference Carolinas Tournament Championship. Barton, which has made six NCAA Tournament appearances in head coach Ron Lievense’s 17 years, returns just one full-time starter from that team, but that player is former league Freshman of the Year Gerald Boston, a sensational senior point guard who is three-time All-Conference and is coming off a junior year where he garnered Conference Carolinas Tournament MVP and All-Region honors.

“There are certainly other teams in the league that returned more starters,” Lievense said. “This (being voted No. 1) is a compliment, but we need a lot of work before we are a championship team. I really like our 12 returning players, as well as their work ethic and their commitment to be better…and they all got better. I also really like our freshmen as a group and believe some of them can be impact players. This team has great potential. The key will be how they all blend and bond together.”

He is excited about the improvement of inside players Aaron Coats, Keith Manley, Jon Hart and Evan Shelton and is happy to have Brian McNair back from an injury that left him sidelined all season. Guard Aaron Brown has shown great leadership and backcourt players Zach Faircloth and Ethan Maske return in better form as well.

 

King College ranked second in the preseason poll. Last season the Tornado surprised Conference Carolinas after being picked fifth in the preseason poll but ended up having one of the best seasons in school history by posting an overall record of 23-8, winning the regular season conference title with a record of 14-2, and advancing to the program’s first NCAA Tournament during its first year of postseason eligibility.

Reigning Conference Carolinas Coach of the Year George Pitts has three of his top four leading scorers returning this season, Eddie Piccinini, Logan Lyle, and Michael Fortune. Piccinini scored a team-high 16.5 points per game and was named to the All-Conference Second Team last season.  Lyle was named Freshman of the Year and averaged 13.5 ppg while making 88 three-pointers for the season.  Fortune played a dual role both as a starter and adding depth on the bench with 12.6 ppg. The trio was a large part of a team that finished No. 1 in the country in three-point makes per game.

Mount Olive finished third in the preseason poll. Mount Olive returns two full-time starters and four key reserves from last year’s squad, which posted its seventh 20-win season in the last nine years and reached the championship game of the 2012 Conference Carolinas Tournament. Ranked No. 6 in the Southeast Region heading into the conference tournament, the Trojans narrowly missed earning its seventh NCAA Tournament bid in the last nine years.

Junior point guard Dory Hines, the 2010-11 Conference Carolinas Co-Freshman of the Year, ranked 10th in the nation last year with 6.0 assists per game. Hines also had the ninth best assist-to-turnover ratio in the nation. Senior forward Mahamed Ibrahim reached double figures in 13 games last season, including a career-high 27 points against Queens. Ibrahim was 7-for-11 from three-point range in that contest.

Queens finished fourth in the poll with Belmont Abbey fifth followed by Coker, Limestone, Pfeiffer, Erskine, Lee-McRae College, and North Greenville respectively rounding-out the poll standings.

Conference Carolinas Men's Basketball Pre-Season Poll        

(# of First Place Votes in Parenthesis)                 

Conference Carolinas is a NCAA Division II athletic conference currently made up of 12 teams from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. These institutions consist of: Barton College, Belmont Abbey College, Coker College, Converse College, Erskine College, King College, Lees-McRae College, Limestone College, Mount Olive College, North Greenville University, Pfeiffer University, and Queens University of Charlotte.