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ASHEVILLE, N.C. – With the regular season in the books, The Citadel basketball team turns to the 2016 Southern Conference Championships in Asheville, North Carolina. The tournament runs March 4-7 at the U.S. Cellular Center. The No. 10 seed Bulldogs square off with No. 7 seed Mercer in first round action at 7:30 p.m. Friday evening.
 
If The Citadel advances, head coach Duggar Baucom and company would face East Tennessee State in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. Saturday. Tickets to the tournament are available through The Citadel ticket office. To purchase, call 843-953-DOGS or visit the McAlister Field House box office in person.
 
The Bulldogs are looking to reach the quarterfinals for the second time in three seasons as they begin their 65th Southern Conference tournament. Mercer and The Citadel have never met in conference tournament play. A Bulldog win would snap a 10-game losing skid vs. the Bears.
 
All games at the SoCon tournament will air on ESPN3 until the championship contest, which will be featured on ESPN2. The Citadel's games will additionally be broadcast on Sports Radio 1450 AM. For all the latest on The Citadel basketball, follow @CitadelHoops and stay tuned to CitadelSports.com.
 
NOTES
• The Citadel can match last season's win total with a first round victory. There have been seven head basketball coaches at The Citadel since 1972. A win Friday would make Duggar Baucom the first since then to reach 11 wins in his first season at the helm.
• Coach Baucom owns a 10-9 record in conference tournaments as a Division I head coach. He led VMI to three conference tourney championship games.
• When Baucom-led teams enter the conference tournament with a sub .500 conference record, they are 4-5.
• The last time the Bulldogs played in a tournament format was over Thanksgiving and The Citadel swept the field by winning three games in four days to take the Palmetto State Shootout title this past November.
• Over the last five games, The Citadel has outscored opponents in bench points by a combined 85 points (217-132). In all five games, the Bulldogs have owned that category by double digits.
• The catalyst for that production has been junior Brian White who scored 41 points over the two games last week after scoring just 23 points in his previous six games combined.
• With seven assists on Saturday, P.J. Boutte has recorded five or more assists in a game 17 times this season. He needs just five more assists Friday to break the all-time program record for assists in a single season.
• Boutte has four double-digit assist games this year. No other player in the SoCon has more than one double-digit assist game.
• Boutte has dished out 175 total assists through 31 games, which leads the SoCon. His 5.6 assists per outing ranks 32nd among all Division I players.
• Over the last three weeks of action, The Citadel has set five different program records. As a team, The Citadel broke records for three-pointers made in a season (354), points scored in a season (2,684), steals in a season (282) and field goals made in a season (915). The Bulldogs need 13 more assists to snap the record for total assists in a season.
• Freshman Zane Najdawi also set a new program mark for blocked shots in a season by a freshman with 60 swats. He is only the second player in Bulldogs history to tally more than 60 blocks in a season. In conference play, Najdawi finished the regular season ranked second in the SoCon in BPG with 2.2 and total blocks with 39.
• The Citadel's five freshmen have racked up 30 combined double-digit performances. None of them average more than 19 minutes per game.
• Derrick Henry has just as many 20-point games this season (10) as the rest of the Bulldogs combined. Henry ranks third in the SoCon in 20-point games and ranks fifth in the league in scoring with 16.2 PPG.
• Henry now has 983 career points. He needs 17 points on Friday to become The Citadel's 32nd 1000-point scorer. He scored 482 total points at Winthrop and has already scored 501 points in less than one full season as a Bulldog.
• The senior has a knack for getting to the line, where he's shooting 78.6 percent. His 165 total made free throws are the fourth most ever in a single season in program history. He's made 98 more free throws than any other Bulldog this season.
• The Citadel is responsible for five of the top six single-game three-point performances in the SoCon as a team this season, racking up 16 treys five different times in 2015-16. The Dogs rank first in the league in three-pointers made per game and third in the NCAA with 11.4.
• The Citadel made at least 10 triples in a game just three times last season. They've done that on 21 total occasions during the current campaign and 13 times in 18 SoCon games.
• Junior Warren Sledge has made a three-pointer in 27 of his last 28 games.
• Last season's No. 10 seed (Furman) went 3-1 at the 2015 Southern Conference Tournament and advanced all the way to the final game before falling to eventual champion Wofford.