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CLINTON, S.C. -- The Samford University basketball team will play its third straight game on the road Tuesday as the Bulldogs square off against the Presbyterian Blue Hose at 6 p.m. (CST) in a key non-conference contest to be held at the Templeton Center (2,500).
 
In its current road swing, Samford (3-8) has dropped tough games at Furman, 74-64, and Wake Forest, 86-68. In their loss at Wake Forest on Sunday, the Bulldogs shot 47.3 percent from the field and knocked down eight 3-point baskets, but were out-rebounded, 42-26, and committed 18 costly turnovers.
 
Samford trailed by just three points, 47-44, early in the second half, but the homestanding Demon Deacons closed out Sunday's game with a 39-24 run to earn the victory in front of 6,973 fans at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
 
In the loss, Samford finished with two players scoring in double figures. Senior forward Tyler Hood paced the Bulldogs with 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field, while sophomore guard Nnamdi Enechionyia tallied 12 of his 15 points in the first half.
 
Combined, Samford's Hood and Enechionyia drained seven 3-point baskets and finished 7-of-14 from beyond the arc.
 
Enechionyia, the Bulldogs' 6-foot-6 sharpshooter from Springfield, Virginia, went a perfect 3-for-3 from long range Sunday. He also pulled down two rebounds, but committed four turnovers in 28 minutes of playing time. Hood finished 4-of-11 from 3-point range and pulled down a rebound in 28 minutes of game action.
 
Samford shot nearly 60 percent from the field in the first half and knocked down five 3-point baskets in the opening 20 minutes of play. In the second half, the Bulldogs only connected on 37.9 of their attempts from the floor and went 3-of-12 from long range.
 
Presbyterian (4-6) heads into Tuesday's matchup with a fair amount of positive momentum after downing Montreat at home Saturday, 79-68. The Blue Hose have been victorious in three of their last five games, with all three wins coming in the Templeton Center.
 
Presbyterian has played well at home this season and boasts a 4-1 record at the Templeton Center. The Blue Hose have defeated Piedmont, 82-72, Toccoa Falls, 63-40, Bob Jones, 88-39, and recently topped Montreat at home this year by a score of 79-68 on Saturday.
 
Senior guard Jordan Downing is Presbyterian's leading scorer this season with an average of 17.2 points per game. Downing has started in all 10 contests for the Blue Hose this year and has already knocked down 27 3-point field goals and is shooting 40.9 percent from long range.
 
The Bulldogs will square off against Presbyterian for just the second time in school history Tuesday.
 
Last season, the teams met on the hardwood for the first time at the Pete Hanna Center and Samford charged back to earn a decisive 71-59 non-conference win. The Bulldogs outscored the Blue Hose, 46-16, in the paint during last season's victory.
 
Samford is looking for its first road win of the 2014-15 campaign. The Bulldogs are currently 0-6 in away games this season and have dropped contests against Purdue, Pittsburgh, Kennesaw State, Louisiana Tech, Furman and Wake Forest.
 
Samford's Hood enters Tuesday's game needing just 71 points to reach the prestigious 1,000-point plateau in his career. With the achievement, Hood would become just the 24th player in the Bulldogs' illustrious history to reach the milestone.
 
At his current scoring pace this season, Hood would reach the historic milestone on Jan. 8 on the road against The Citadel in a Southern Conference showdown to be held in Charleston, South Carolina.
 
Samford's Christen Cunningham has already tallied 50 assists in 11 games this season. The Bulldogs' talented true freshman floor general has already been named the SoCon Freshman of the Week twice this year and is averaging 4.5 assists per game.
 
Eight of the Bulldogs' 15 players are in the midst of their first season at Samford University, and only two (Brandon Hayman and Hood) have been on the roster longer than two years.
 
Two of the Bulldogs' probable starters, Cunningham and Darius Jones-Gibson, are in their inaugural seasons at Samford. Cunningham is a highly-touted true freshman point guard from Georgetown, Kentucky, while Jones-Gibson, a native of Lexington, Kentucky, transferred in the summer from Barton County Community College.
 
Samford returned 21.2 points per game from last season's squad that averaged 70.5 points per outing. Additionally, the Bulldogs returned an average of 10.9 rebounds per game out of a total of 32.1 from the 2013-14 campaign.
 
In percentages, Samford returned 30.1 percent of its scoring production from last season; mainly from its top three offensive returners in Hood (7.9), Brandon Roberts (4.0) and Michael Bradley (3.5).
 
On the boards, the Bulldogs returned 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 Hayman followed with 1.2 rebounds per outing.
 
Following Tuesday's road game at Presbyterian, the Samford University basketball team will next be in action Sunday at 2 p.m. (CT) as the Bulldogs return home to Birmingham, Alabama for a non-conference duel with the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks to be held in the Pete Hanna Center.

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