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PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- The Samford University basketball team will square off against the Pittsburgh Panthers for the first time in school history Sunday as the Bulldogs continue their four-day, two-game, season-opening road trip at noon (CST) in a non-conference contest to be held at the Petersen Events Center (12,508).
 
The game will be televised regionally and is scheduled to be broadcast live on Fox Sports South in Birmingham, Alabama.
 
Samford (0-1) heads into Sunday's contest looking to rebound from an 80-40 season-opening loss at Purdue on Friday. The matchup marked the beginning of The Padgett Era for the Bulldogs in Scott Padgett's first game as head coach.
 
Samford was limited to 22.7-percent shooting from the field Friday and a 3-of-20 performance from 3-point range. The Bulldogs forced Purdue into 16 turnovers and were led in scoring by true freshman Christen Cunningham.
 
Cunningham, Samford's feisty 6-foot-2 point guard from Georgetown, Kentucky, tallied 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the floor and pulled down five rebounds. He also finished a perfect 2-of-2 from the charity stripe and only committed two turnovers in his first collegiate game.
 
Pittsburgh (1-0) heads into Sunday's matchup with a full head of steam after earning a demonstrative 78-45 home victory against Niagara on Friday.
 
In the Panthers' season-opening triumph, Jamel Artis scored a career-high 14 points to lead four players in double figures as Pittsburgh won its 19th-consecutive season-opening contest. Josh Newkirk added 12 points for the Panthers, while freshman Cameron Johnson added 11 and Chris Jones finished with 10.
 
Pitt shot 52 percent from the floor and had little trouble with the rebuilding Purple Eagles.
 
The Bulldogs will face Pittsburgh on the hardwood for the first time in school history Sunday. The University of Pittsburgh was founded in 1787 and boasts an enrollment of 28,823. The Panthers' basketball program was started in 1905 and is currently in the midst of its second season as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
 
Since taking over as head coach in June, Samford's Padgett has coined the phrase "FOE" as his biggest mantra of the Bulldogs' basketball program. FOE stands for Family Over Everything and has truly resonated with Samford's players ... old and new.
 
"I don't really invent a lot of things, but I've worked under a lot of great coaches and have been around a lot of great people," said Padgett. "My former teammate and boss, Steve Masiello, came up with the saying Team Over Everything, and I kind of liked it, but at Kentucky it was all about Family. So, I kind of combined those two concepts and now we have Family Over Everything (#FOE). I really believe that this team is a family and that goes with everybody's extended families, as well as the staff and everybody involved with Samford basketball."
 
The Bulldogs have made at least one 3-point field goal in 691-consecutive games. The last time that Samford did not make a 3-point basket was on Jan. 19, 1991, against UTSA.
 
Samford is returning 21.2 points per game from last season's squad that averaged 70.5 points per outing. Additionally, the Bulldogs are returning an average of 10.9 rebounds per game out of a total of 32.1 from the 2013-14 campaign.
 
In percentages, Samford is returning 30.1 percent of its scoring production from last season; mainly from its top three offensive returners in Tyler Hood (7.9), Brandon Roberts (4.0) and Michael Bradley (3.5).
 
On the boards, the Bulldogs are returning 32.1 percent of its rebounding from the 2013-14 campaign. Bradley is Samford's top returning rebounder with an average of 3.6 per game last season, while Hood added 3.1 and Brandon Hayman followed with 1.2 rebounds per outing.
 
One of Padgett's top themes this season is #PlayFast. Samford's first-year skipper looks to have his team press full-court for 40 minutes and then push the ball up the court on the offensive attack.
 
"The thing that's going to get us playing fast offensively is going to be our defense," said Padgett. "We're going to be a defensive team. There are going to be a lot of times when we score a lot of points, but those points are going to be directly related to playing great defense and getting the rebound.
 
"Once we get a defensive rebound, we will be pushing to get a layup every time down the court, or at least a wide-open shot. We're going to be in attack-mode all game long. We teach our guys that we want to dictate what the offense does when we're on defense, and we also want to dictate what their defense does when we are on the offensive side of the ball. There will be times when teams try to slow us down, but we're going to keep the game going 90 miles per hour all the time."
 
Following Sunday's key road test at Pittsburgh, the Samford University basketball team will next be in action Wednesday at 7 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs begin their 2014-15 home slate against the Austin Peay Govs. The game will be held on campus at the Pete Hanna Center.

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