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ASHEVILLE, N.C. – The Citadel will open play in the 2021 Ingles Southern Conference Men's Basketball Championships Presented by General Shale Brick on Friday evening at 5:30 p.m. with a rematch against Western Carolina after the two sides split the regular season series.
 
Friday's game will be broadcast live on ESPN+ from inside the Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville. The game will also be carried on the radio locally on 102.1FM and 1450AM with Luke Mauro, the Voice of the Bulldogs, on the radio call.
 
The Bulldogs (12-11, 5-11 SoCon) fell in their regular season finale last Wednesday at Furman, 72-63. The Citadel led well into the second half, but a late rally by the Paladins midway through the frame erased the deficit and Furman held on for the victory. Hayden Brown led The Citadel with 18 points, Kaiden Rice added 16 and Stephen Clark had 14 points, four assists and three steals in a well-balanced effort.
 
In the regular season series, the Bulldogs and Catamounts each won on their home floors. In Cullowhee on Feb. 1, Mason Faulkner scored with five seconds remaining to give Western Carolina a 76-75 victory, while in Charleston five days later, The Citadel led wire-to-wire and got double-doubles from Brown (21 points, 15 rebounds) and Tyler Moffe (14 points, 10 assists) in a 74-63 win.
 
For the first time since the 2008-09 campaign, The Citadel had a pair of players earn all-conference honors from both the coaches and media voters in the same season. Hayden Brown was named a First Teamer by both panels, while Kaiden Rice was selected as a Second Teamer by the media and to the Third Team by the coaches. Brown also became the first Bulldog since his former teammate Zane Najdawi in 2017-18 to be named to the First Team by both the coaches and media.
 
The Citadel will be looking for its first victory in the SoCon Tournament since a 78-70 win over archrival VMI on March 2, 2018. A win on Friday evening would be the third for the program under Head Coach Duggar Baucom, which would tie him with Les Robinson, Pat Dennis and Benny Blatt as the winningest postseason coach in program history.
 
Normally known for its offensive prowess, The Citadel has been strong at swatting away shots this season, leading the SoCon and ranking 36th nationally with 4.6 blocks per game. The 10 blocked shots against ETSU on Feb. 10 were the fourth-most in a single game in program history. Stephen Clark, who had four blocks against ETSU, currently ranks second among SoCon players with 2.0 blocks per game, a mark that has him ranked 30th among all Division I players.
 
With 12 double-doubles this season, Brown has already moved into a tie for second place on The Citadel's all-time single-season list in the category. Brown is on pace to become the first Bulldog to average a double-double since John Sutor in the 1970-71 campaign. Across his 12 double-doubles, Brown is averaging 21.3 points and 14.2 rebounds.
 
Rice has splashed 16 three-pointers across the last five games for the Bulldogs and is up to 91 made triples on the season, the fifth-most in program history and the second-most by any Division I player in the nation in 2020-21. Among Bulldogs with at least 50 three-point attempts, Rice also ranks second on the team in percentage, shooting at a 36.3 percent clip (91-of-251) for the season.
 
The Catamounts (11-15, 4-13 SoCon) enter Friday's game with four players averaging double figures in Mason Faulkner (16.3), Cory Hightower (14.5), Xavier Cork (12.6) and Matt Halvorsen (12.2). Halvorsen and Cork have started all 26 games for Western Carolina, and Hightower is the team's leading rebounder at a 6.3 per game clip. Faulkner has dished out a team-best 101 assists but also owns a team-high 73 turnovers. As a team, the Catamounts shoot just 34.4 percent from three-point range, the fourth-lowest mark among SoCon squads.
 
Western Carolina finished the regular season as one of the hottest teams in the league, knocking off regular season champion UNCG in Greensboro, 81-80, last Wednesday before dealing Mercer a 24-point loss, 85-61, in Cullowhee in the regular season finale on Saturday. Faulkner averaged 20 points across the two wins and poured in a season-best 28 points against the Spartans in the upset victory.
 
Longtime SoCon rivals dating back to the 1977-78 campaign, Saturday's meeting will mark the 82nd all-time between the Bulldogs and the Catamounts. Western Carolina owns a 44-37 advantage in the series, but The Citadel claimed the most recent meeting in a 74-63 victory inside McAlister Field House on Feb. 6. The two sides will be meeting for the fourth time in the SoCon Tournament, with the Catamounts holding a 3-1 edge in the postseason matchups.
 
With a victory on Friday evening, The Citadel would advance to face top seed and regular season champion UNCG in the quarterfinals on Saturday afternoon at Noon. The Spartans won both matchups in the regular season against the Bulldogs, who would be seeking their first win in the series since Jan. 5, 2015. The Citadel would also be seeking to match program history in the conference tournament; the Bulldogs have not won two tournament games in the same season since 1958-59, when they defeated Furman and George Washington before falling to West Virginia.