By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Fans of candy, costumes, and Tennessee Tech basketball will get the opportunity to enjoy all three in one night as the Golden Eagles men's squad will provide a preview of what is to come in the 2023-24 campaign with an exhibition affair against UT Southern in the Hooper Eblen Center Thursday night, putting a cap on a festive Purple Palooza evening.
Tip is set for 7:30 p.m. CT as fifth-year head coach John Pelphrey and the purple and gold square off with the Firehawks in the team's lone home exhibition tilt of the preseason. As part of Purple Palooza, the Tech women's basketball squad will face Christian Brothers at 5:30 p.m. Doors open to the public Thursday at 4:30 p.m. as local businesses and organizations, as well as Tennessee Tech teams and student groups, will host trick-or-treat stations around the Eblen Center concourse.
The action can be followed live via radio with Roger Ealey on the call on 106.1 The Eagle while Dylan Vazzano and Frank Harrell will provide coverage of the contest on ESPN+.
For the 2023-24 season, the Golden Eagles were selected to make their third consecutive trip to Evansville in March, finishing sixth in the Ohio Valley Conference's preseason predicted order of finish, just four points back of Southeast Missouri.
Despite returning just five members to last year's team, Pelphrey and his coaching staff brought in a class of 11 newcomers that helped lift the program to its highest point in over a decade. While it took the squad some time to adapt and adjust to one another, come OVC play, the Golden Eagles got after it.
After back-to-back losses to open league action, Tech flipped the script and rolled off five straight victories, embarking on an 11-7 conference record that saw the purple and gold secure a second-place finish in the regular season standings, the best by the program since 2004-05.
Tech entered the OVC Tournament as the No. 2 seed, its highest since claiming the No. 1 position after winning the league's regular-season crown in 2004-05. It earned them an automatic berth to the semifinals as well, the team's 20th trip to the final four of the OVC's postseason event.
This season, the purple and gold welcome 10 newcomers with seven members of the 2022-23 squad back in Cookeville. Back for the Golden Eagles are Harvey, Wood, Grant Slatten, Grant Strong, Erik Oliver, Bogdan Zimonjic, and Jerome Beya.
New to the crew for 2023-24 campaign are sophomore guard Brandon Brown (Bristol, Tenn. / Lees-McRae), sophomore guard Nick Choate (Livingston, Tenn. / Livingston Academy), sophomore center David Craig (Johannesburg, South Africa / Mercer), sophomore guard Josiah Davis (Kitchener, Ontario / West Virginia), junior guard David Early (Logan, W.Va. / Marshall), sophomore forward Daniel Egbuniwe (Memphis, Tenn. / Little Rock), junior forward Rodney Johnson Jr. (Bryan, Texas / Weatherford College), freshman guard Kyle Layton (McKinney, Texas / Mountain Brook [AL] HS), freshman forward Rylee Samons (Pikeville, Ky. / Pikeville HS), and junior guard DeSean Woods (Lexington, Ky. / Southern U.).
Thursday's game – and the entire Purple Palooza event – is free and open to the public. The Golden Eagles will officially kick off the new slate with its season opener at Tennessee on Monday, Nov. 6. Tech will make its home debut Tuesday, Nov. 16 with a 6:00 p.m. CT affair against in-state rival Lipscomb.
Season tickets for Tennessee Tech men's basketball are now on sale. To order, call 931-372-3940, visit the Hooper Eblen Center ticket office, or visit TTUSports.com.
Photo by Thomas Corhern
