Presbyterian College’s men’s basketball team is set to face Gardner-Webb University on Saturday, January 17, at Paul Porter Arena in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. The game will tip off at 2:00 p.m. and will be available for viewing on ESPN+.
The Blue Hose currently hold a 9-10 overall record and are 2-2 in Big South Conference play. In their most recent outing, Presbyterian secured a narrow victory over UNC Asheville with a score of 71-70. Junior guard Carl Parrish led the team with a career-high 28 points, including five three-pointers without a miss. Redshirt senior forward Jonah Pierce contributed another double-double performance with 24 points and 11 rebounds, while redshirt junior forward Jaylen Peterson added 11 points.
Jonah Pierce leads the Blue Hose in scoring this season with an average of 15.6 points per game and is also the top rebounder in the Big South Conference, averaging 9.3 rebounds per contest. He ranks first in the conference and eleventh nationally with nine double-doubles so far this season. Parrish follows as the team’s second-leading scorer at 13.7 points per game and has made a team-high 47 three-point field goals.
Ten players from Presbyterian have made at least one three-pointer this season. Peterson is second on the team in rebounding (7.4 per game) and averages just under ten points each contest. Sophomore guard Triston Wilson leads Presbyterian in assists with an average of 3.5 per game and has recorded five or more assists in six games this year.
Defensively, Pierce, Peterson, and redshirt freshman Chidi Chiakwelu each average about one blocked shot per game; Pierce ranks fourth in the conference (1.4 blocks), while Chiakwelu is fifth (1.2 blocks). As a unit, Presbyterian shoots 46.4 percent from the field and averages nearly seventy points per game.
The Blue Hose rank second among Big South teams for scoring defense by holding opponents to an average of seventy points per contest; they are also second in rebounding margin within the conference and stand seventy-fourth nationally by outrebounding opponents by just over five boards each game.
Chidi Chiakwelu tied Presbyterian’s Division I era single-game record for blocked shots with six against Wofford earlier this season—a mark previously reached by Peterson last year against Winthrop.
Pierce has collected double-digit rebounds eleven times during this campaign—including notable performances such as sixteen rebounds against Morehead State—and continues to lead his team on both ends of the court.
In their win over USC Upstate earlier this month, Presbyterian set program records for free throws made (31) and attempted (43) during its Division I era; Wilson made seventeen free throws individually that night—a school record since joining Division I competition.
Head coach Quinton Ferrell is now in his seventh season leading his alma mater after graduating from Presbyterian College in 2007; he is among fifty-one NCAA Division I coaches currently heading programs where they once played as student-athletes.
Saturday’s matchup marks the sixty-third meeting between these two teams; Gardner-Webb holds a historical edge with thirty-seven wins to twenty-five for Presbyterian but lost their most recent encounter last March when former Blue Hose player Kaleb Scott scored twenty-one points alongside seven rebounds.
Gardner-Webb enters Saturday’s contest amid a five-game losing streak with an overall record of two wins against seventeen losses (0-4 Big South). The Runnin’ Bulldogs average just under sixty-nine points offensively while allowing nearly eighty-nine defensively; redshirt freshman Spence Sims leads them with an average of eleven point one points per game.
