Box Score
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SoCon Tournament Bracket

LEXINGTON, Va. -- The Samford University basketball team earned its biggest Southern Conference road victory in over two years Saturday as the Bulldogs shot their way to an 80-69 triumph against the VMI Keydets in the team's first all-time game played at Cameron Hall.

The win helped Samford build momentum heading into next week's SoCon Tournament as the Bulldogs draw UNCG in the opening round of play to be held at the U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Samford will face UNCG on Friday at 5 p.m. (CST) and the winner will meet top-seeded Wofford on Saturday at 11 a.m.
 
"I told the guys after the game that I went from being so disappointed in them and the way they played Thursday, to now I'm just extremely proud in how they came out and competed with passion and conviction," said Samford head coach Scott Padgett. "This game was the ultimate test of heart, because we didn't really have any seeding on the line at all, but they still came out with pride and competitiveness and with the desire to outplay the guys across from them."
 
With Saturday's 11-point victory, Samford (13-18, 6-12 SoCon) concluded its 2014-15 campaign with a 4-11 record on the road. The Bulldogs' 80-69 win also equaled the program's best SoCon road victory since defeating Furman, 64-53, in Greenville, North Carolina on Feb. 16, 2013.
 
Samford's triumph Saturday can be attributed to the stellar play of true freshman Christen Cunningham and senior Tyler Hood.
 
Cunningham, the Bulldogs' dynamic 6-foot-2 point guard from Georgetown, Kentucky, scored a career-high 22 points against VMI (11-18, 7-11 SoCon) and turned in a solid 10-of-16 shooting performance from the field. Additionally, Cunningham grabbed five rebounds, handed out four assists and tallied a steal.
 
"This was a great win for us and a really good opportunity to build some momentum heading into the SoCon Tournament," said Cunningham. "This was a very physical game. The referees let us play and it's always fun when they do, because nobody wants to watch a lot of fouls and free throws. It was a great win and we need to make sure that we continue to force turnovers next week as we play in the SoCon Tournament."
 
Hood provided the late daggers for Samford as the 6-foot-6 senior sharpshooter scored 13 of his 21 points in the second half and drained three late 3-pointers. Hood, the Bulldogs' talented native of Lenoir City, Tennessee, scored all 13 of his second-half points in the final 6:28 of the game and propelled Samford from a two-point lead, 59-57, to a 13-point lead, 76-63.
 
"I'm very proud of this entire team, but especially for Tyler Hood and what he was able to accomplish, despite battling foul trouble," said Padgett. "Late in the game, he was the catalyst that helped us that huge 8-0 run to build back the lead and we want him to close out his senior year in a big way and today he did a great job in his last regular-season game."
 
Samford registered a key momentum-shifting 16-3 run late in the first half and boasted a 38-26 advantage at the intermission.
 
"I thought the key stretch was there in the first half when we got seven stops in a row," Padgett said. "A lot of times your offense is predicated upon your defensive play and with those stops we were able to translate that into a nice little run. Our numbers were good offensively. We shot the ball well from the field and from the 3-point line, but again that was dictated by our play defensively and being able to push the ball in transition."
 
The Bulldogs shot 46.9 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes of action and limited VMI's nation-best 3-point shooting squad to an 8.3-percent mark from long range in the first half.
 
Both teams shot well over 50 percent in the second half and the Keydets initiated one of their prototypical offensive runs midway through the final frame.
 
Samford's Jamal Shabazz grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on the put-back to give the Bulldogs a 52-40 lead with 11:53 remaining in the period, but then VMI stormed ahead to score 12 straight points and 15 of the next 19.
 
With the crowd at full throat, the Keydets trimmed Samford's once-large lead back down to 56-55 at the 7:39 mark.
 
From that point on, the Bulldogs' Darius Jones-Gibson scored on an acrobatic fast-break drive to the rim and finalized the 3-point play with a free throw.
 
VMI's Trey Chapman then knocked down his only 3-pointer of the game to make a two-point contest, 59-57, when Samford's Hood connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to quiet the crowd.
 
Hood ignited the Bulldogs' late run as Samford closed out the game on a 21-12 streak to secure its momentous 80-69 victory.
 
"Coming out of the locker room, the main message of our team was to play for each other," said Hood. "Wherever we land in the tournament is where we're going to land, so we really didn't have that much pressure on us. We've been the underdog all year and that didn't change today. We did a great job defensively of just getting stops and that proved to be the key difference today."
 
Samford finished the game shooting 50.8 percent from the field and 41.2 percent from 3-point range. VMI tallied a 47.3 mark from the floor, but finished a lackluster 25.9 percent from beyond the arc. The Bulldogs out-rebounded the Keydets, 35-29, and forced VMI into 22 turnovers.
 
"I would say that we've been a poor rebounding team all year," said Padgett. "We're average some nights, but poor most nights. Today, we went up against the top rebounding team in the conference and we out-rebounded them by six, and they only had five offensive rebounds. Our defensive communication was great and they might have talked more today than they did in the other 30 games combined."
 
Samford's Jones-Gibson finished Saturday's victory with nine points, three assists, a rebound and a steal, while Michael Bradley added eight points and three rebounds in just nine minutes of playing time.
 
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Friday in Asheville, North Carolina, as the Bulldogs face UNCG in the opening round of play to be held at the U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Samford will square off against UNCG on Friday at 5 p.m. (CST) and the winner will meet top-seeded Wofford on Saturday at 11 a.m.

Box Score
Samford Stats
SoCon Tournament Bracket