Published on March 20, 2024 by Joey Mullins  
MBB NCAA Matchup

Samford’s men’s basketball team will travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, to take on Kansas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The game will take place on Thursday, March 21, at 7:55 p.m. MT (8:55 CDT) and will be aired on TBS. Tune in to cheer on the Bulldogs as they take on the Jayhawks!

If you are attending the game, join the official Samford fans pre-party from 4:30-6:15 p.m. MT and the team send-off at 6:15 p.m. MT at the Sheraton Salt Lake City Hotel!

"Obviously, I'm very excited for our program to be on the national scene," Samford head coach Bucky McMillan said. "Those that have been following our program know this is a special team. It's a special group of guys, the way they represent our university goes hand in hand with our university, how hard they work, how unselfish they are and the confidence in how they approach their business on a day-to-day basis."

This is Samford's third trip to the NCAA Tournament, having previously gone in 1999 and 2000. This is the first-ever meeting between Samford and Kansas in men's basketball.

Samford has posted the best season in its program history, boasting a record of 29-5 overall and 15-3 in Southern Conference play. The Bulldogs won the SoCon outright regular-season championship for the first time since joining the league in 2008. Samford punched its ticket to the NCAA Tournament with a 76-69 win over ETSU in the championship game of the SoCon Tournament on March 11, in Asheville, N.C.

Samford currently ranks fifth in the nation in scoring offense, averaging 86.0 points per game. The Bulldogs also rank in the top 10 in the nation in bench points per game (5th-33.38 pg.), turnovers forced per game (6th-16.62 pg.), effective field goal percentage (6th-57.3%), three-point percentage (7th-39.3%), fast break points per game (7th-15.26 pg.) and winning percentage (8th-85.3%).

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.