Samford Basketball Releases Non-Conference Schedule
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day and it’s a new life for Samford basketball this upcoming season. Former Samford head coach Bucky McMillan is now at Texas A&M after five seasons and former Lipscomb head coach Lennie Acuff is Samford’s new leader.
Acuff comes to Homewood after six seasons at Lipscomb with the final season ending in a NCAA Tournament appearance. Lipscomb lost to Arkansas in the round of 64 last March. He, however, is not new to the state of Alabama after coaching 23 seasons at the University of Alabama-Huntsville from 1997-2019.
A new coach also comes with a brand new roster as Samford returns just two players from last season.
Your first chance to see this new-look Samford basketball team in the now expanded Ballin’ in Boutwell event on October 13th against Alabama A&M.
We now have Samford’s full schedule for Acuff’s inaugural season as Samford looks to stay near the top of the Southern Conference. The non-conference schedule has some compelling games including a trip to the aforementioned Arkansas Razorbacks and another trip to VCU (last coming in 2023).
The matchup against Coach Cal and Arkansas on November 14th will be the second matchup in history as Samford last made the trip to Fayetteville in 2017.
Samford does have an interesting season opener taking on the Tulane Green Wave down in New Orleans for the first ever matchup between the two schools on November 3rd.
The ASUN-SoCon Alliance is back for another season as Samford will play at Central Arkansas on November 16th. Then back at home Samford will take on Florida Gulf Coast on November 18th.
Samford is not hosting their own multi-team-event (MTE) over Thanksgiving break as they had previously over the last couple seasons. The Bulldogs will instead take part in the 2025 Cancun Challenge taking on New Mexico State in Las Cruces before heading down to Mexico to play Georgia State and Utah Valley.
There are four opponents on this schedule that Samford faced last year in South Carolina State, Texas Southern, Utah Valley and Cornell. Samford went 3-1 and were a buzzer beater away from beating the lone loss of that group in Cornell.
Samford has to get through this non-conference slate before another fun and challenging season in the Southern Conference. It is a whole lot of new with the coaching staff and roster under first year head coach Lennie Acuff.
Here is Samford’s full non-conference schedule with each opponent’s KenPom rating from a season ago.
11/3 at Tulane - KenPom 144th
11/7 vs South Carolina State - 192nd
11/12 at Texas Southern - 278th
11/14 at Arkansas - 36th
11/16 at Central Arkansas - 349th
11/18 vs Florida Gulf Coast - 179th
11/21 at New Mexico State - 134th
11/25 vs Georgia State (Cancun) - 262nd
11/26 vs Utah Valley (Cancun) - 112th
12/5 at VCU - 34th
12/7 vs Cornell - 129th
12/16 vs Bryan College - N/A
12/19 vs Reinhardt - N/A
Stay turned for our basketball preview as the season quickly approaches.
