GREENSBORO, N.C. – It is time to party like it's 2019, as for the first time since that year, the Guilford College men's basketball team is not only dancing, but they are hosting the opening round of the NCAA Tournament at the Ragan-Brown Field House. The Quakers first test; Berry College as the Vikings make the trip up from Georgia for the chance to compete this year after a one-year hiatus, having last cracked the field of 64 in 2022.

The Quakers' Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Tournament run was halted prematurely when they fell to Virginia Wesleyan University in the Quarterfinals, but their resume had plenty of substance prior. They enter the tournament with a 22-4 record that included them going 13-3 in ODAC play and 5-3 against regionally-ranked opponents. All that plus coming out of the super-competitive ODAC conference that collected four bids to the big dance, including three hosts, and final result is their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2019.

"I am proud of our guys for the regular season," Head Coach Tom Palombo said. "Playing in the ODAC is a grind and to have the success we had, I am just really happy for how the guys fought all year long… Playing at home in front of our fans is awesome. I am really happy for the guys for the opportunity."

Berry, on the other hand, is red-hot right now. Winners of 16-straight through their conference championship game, the Vikings earned a tournament berth as the automatic qualifier out of the Southern Athletic Association (SAA). They scuffled big-time out of the gates, falling to Christopher Newport on New Year's Day and in the process, they fell to 3-9 on the season. From that point forward, however, they simply have not lost, rolling through their 2024 conference slate straight into and through the league tournament to finish 19-9, including 16-1 against conference competition.

"Berry is very good," Coach Palombo said. "They have multiple offensive weapons and will be tough to guard. (And) they are extremely sound on defense."

For The Quakers
Guilford College has sat comfortably within the upper-echelon of teams not only in the conference, but in the nation basically from the jump this season. They do not go about their business in a flashy manner, just solid, fundamentally sound basketball. Defend at a high level, hit your free throws, do not turnover the ball: a recipe for success since the sports inception.

It is the less glamorous end of the floor that is the Quakers calling card as enter the dance as the top scoring defense in all of Division III Men's Basketball allowing a mere 55.6 points per game. Guilford does not rack up the steals as they rank outside the top-150 in the nation, meanwhile, they are even lower in blocks ranking 396^th. So how do they defend? By contesting everything. They are 13^th in opponent field goal percentage at .381 against, they do not let you get to the charity stripe, committing just 13.9 fouls per game, the 27^th fewest in the nation, and their lack of turnovers on offense do not let you get out on the fast break, as they allow less than ten points off mistakes per game. If there is one weakness they have, it is defending the three-pointer where they "only" rank 63^rd nationally in opponent three-point percentage allowing a .308 rate. However, it is there where Virginia Wesleyan made a living in their two victories over the Quakers. Among the best offensive rebounding teams in the nation, Guilford is surprisingly pedestrian on the defensive end especially as they force so many misses. However, they do well enough in that respect to remain the hardest team to score against in the nation.

Guilford ranks outside the top-300 in Division-III Men's Basketball in scoring at 68.2 points per game, but they do enough to be effective. As alluded to, they attack the offensive glass for extra chances, securing over 12-and-a-half per game, that plus when they do force turnovers, they capitalize, scoring 15.7 points per game off mistakes. Those create a lot of good looks from close range, or alternatively, from the free throw line where they connect at a .765 rate as a team, the 18^th-best mark nationally. It is also worth noting that GC shoots the three-ball at an above average rate, making .347 of their attempts, the 105^th-best mark in the nation.

The Quakers are led by the hometown tandem of Tyler Dearman (Greensboro, N.C.) and Julius Burch (Greensboro, N.C.) the All-ODAC duo has been difficult to stop really across the past three years with Dearman scoring and Burch dominating the glass.

Dearman was named the Old Dominion Athletic Conference Kurt Axe Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year for the Quakers in recognition of his exploits on both ends of the floor. He has a sky-high usage rate, as his team-leading 424 field goal attempts, 190 three-point attempts, and 142 free throw attempts represent 29.1%, 30.8%, and 33.3% of the team's attempts on the season respectively. His .399 field goal percentage and .316 three-point percentage do not look pretty, but his .852 free throw conversion rate is elite, and when you are a top-50 scorer in the nation scoring 20.0 points per game, no one questions it. As his conference honor represents, Dearman is on the short list of the best defenders in D3 hoops. While the team as a whole does not get a lot of thefts, Dearman piles them up with 60 on the season, the 31^st-most in the nation and good for 2.31 per game.

Burch is a dominant presence for the Quakers in the middle. While he is the team's leading shot blocker, his biggest strength is that he cleans up the glass for this Guilford squad. His 9.7 rebounds per game top the conference and rank 43^rd in the nation while his 6.15 defensive boards are the second-most in the ODAC. Both are a top-100 rates in the nation and his 3.58 on the offensive end is a top-25 mark nationally. The only other Quaker to average double-digits in scoring, Burch scores 10.6 points per game while converting on .566 of his shot attempts that would be another top-50 mark in the country if he qualified.

After Dearman and Burch, the Quakers have a lot of balance. Let us start wit the Proctor brothers; Gabe Proctor (Apex, N.C.) and Luke Proctor (Apex, N.C.) who are crucial contributors for the Quakers as knock-down shooters and emotional spark-plugs. Luke gets the starting lineup nod as the team's third-leading scorer at 8.5 points per game making his three-pointers at a .359 mark, and his free throws at an .833 rate. Gabe comes off the bench where he flourishes averaging 7.7 points per game where he shoots a team-best .442 from three, better than his overall shooting percentage of .420, and his 53 three-point makes are among the top-200 nationally.

Caleb Farrish (McLeansville, N.C.) is a stretch-five for Guilford who is averaging 8.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per contest with a .460/.363/.697 shooting line. His rebounds, in addition to his 31 steals, rank third on the Quakers. Rob Littlejohn (Columbus, Ohio) rounds out the starting-five averaging 8.0 points and 4.3 rebounds.

Dawson Edwards (Durham, N.C.) and Kyshon Tate (Baltimore, Md.) will both also see action. Neither average more than 2.5 points per game, although they are efficient in their limited attempts, shooting better than .500 from the field. The former is also trending up in recent games, averaging 6.7 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting .533 (8-15) from the field and .800 (4-5) from three over his last three games.

FOR THE VIKINGS
This first-round game will be a fascinating matchup between Guilford's suffocating defense and Berry's high-powered offense as they finished as the top-scoring squad in the SAA an 48^th-best in the nation netting 81.9 points per game. They are super-efficient as a group shooting .491 as a team, good for 11^th nationally, while also knocking down their three-point attempts at a .361 rate. The Vikings also finished as their conference's best defensive team, although they still allowed 71.9 points per game that is only 148^th nationally. Berry can get exploited on the glass where they finished last in the SAA and 300^th in the country in total rebounding, collecting 35.28 per game with a negative rebounding margin, although it is worth noting they do rank higher in both of those categories on the defensive glass and are at least in the middle of the pack in those statistics.

Also like the Quakers, BC is led by dynamic duo of their own, and swept the SAA Player and Defensive Player of the Year awards, although they did so with two different guys. Blake Campbell leads their scoring attack as a top-100 player in the NCAA in total points, and sitting 34^th in the nation by averaging 20.4 points per game and he is efficient too, with a .520/.381/.743 shooting line. His field goal percentage ranks 105^th in the D3 men's basketball, and he can go off on any night as evidenced by his 40-point explosion against Sewanee just a couple of weeks ago.

The other half of their tandem is Braxton Benham, the SAA Defensive Player of the Year, and team's point guard is a menace defensively, and efficient offensively. On offense he contributes 14.8 points per contest on a .517/.397/.661 shooting line, with his field goal percentage slotting just ten spots behind Campbell nationally. He is also an elite distributor with his 116 total assists doubling-up the next-best Viking and ranking 51^st nationally, leading to an average that comes out to a 4.1 per game that is 75^th in DIII hoops. All of that while posting a 1.55 assist-to-turnover ratio that is also a top-200 mark in the nation. Benham is even better on the defensive end where he has the sixth-most steals in all of Division-III men's basketball with 78, coming out to a 2.79 average that ranks 11^th. He is also the Vikings' leading shot-blocker with ten, and leading rebounder averaging 5.4.

Chase Ellis missed a month-and-a-half from late-December through early-February, but he provides Berry with a third double-digit scorer netting 12.9 points per game. Now, stop me if you have heard this one before, but he is efficient in getting to that mark, with a .517/.380/.694 shooting line in which his field goal percentage would rank right up alongside Campbell and Benham nationally had he qualified.

Jordan Krueger and Bryce Clark are the most-likely final two starters. Krueger is a wing who can shoot it a little bit, making his threes at a .336 rate, but he keeps the ball moving with 44 assists, third-most on the team, and is an effective rebounder. Clark will man the middle where he has made the most of his limited shot attempts with a .674 field goal percentage en route to 5.0 points per game, although he is not a great rebounder for his size, grabbing 3.0 per game.

Off the bench is Riley Costas, another efficient source of points on limited shots, with a .667 field-goal percentage to score 7.5 points and he is also their best minute-by-minute rebounder, collecting just a hair under seven rebounds per-30.

The rest of the Vikings reserve corps are a bunch of shooters. Jacob Morgan is the best of the bunch. After shuttling in-an-out of the starting-five early in the year, he has settled in nicely as almost exclusively a sixth-man since the turn of the calendar. He averages just under ten points per game shooting .490 from the field, .372 from range, and is their top free throw shooter as well, converting at a .824 rate.

Drew Winegarden and Isaac Martin are a couple of freshmen who will also play roles in this game for the visitors. The former owns a .388 three-point shooting percentage and has had some pop-games shooting the ball on his way to 7.0 points per contest, while the latter is more-or-less a strict "three-and-D" guard as nearly 79% of his shots this season have come from long range, making them at a .348 rate on his way to 3.5 points per game.

MATCHUP HISTORY
This will be the third time on record that the Quakers will battle the Vikings, they previously played in back-to-back years in non-conference action in 2018 and 2019. The Quakers won both of those contests 68-58 and 73-56 respectively. Guilford has never played Berry in postseason play. No active player on either team appeared in those previous contests.

COACHES
Head coach Tom Palombo is in his 21st season leading the Quakers' men's basketball program and 33rd total as a collegiate head coach. The all-time winningest coach in program history after surpassing Jack Jensen early this season, Palombo now stands with 393 wins as Guilford's head coach and he has led them to the NCAA Tournament now seven times.

Mick Hedgepeth is in his second season leading the Vikings and makes his first NCAA Tournament appearance as bench boss.

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