A Late Season Report Card of ETSU Basketball

It’s Brooks Savage’s first season as Buccaneers head coach. How’s he doin’?

Don’t look now but there are only eight ETSU men’s basketball games left this season.

Doesn’t seem possible. Seems like the season is just taking off.

Maybe it’s because football has completely taken hold of the American sports fan’s attention, with the Super Bowl getting ten times the television rating of the World Series or NBA Finals.

What chance does a mid-major college basketball team spinning their wheels have to draw attention against the star power of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Taylor Swift?

For the record, Vince Gill once showed up at an ETSU home basketball game. But he didn’t bring Amy Grant and rooted for Belmont. So the Bucs still have a long way to go . . .

Or maybe it’s because just when you thought ETSU basketball might make some noise after beating the likes of Davidson and East Carolina before the Southern Conference schedule began, Karon Boyd got hurt and the Buccaneers lost five games in a row.

What was a team with a 9–5 record is now just looking to break even on the 2023–24 campaign.

But the fact of the matter is the goal of this team was always just to have a winning record.

And after three straight seasons of posting losing records against Division I competition, including a 20-loss season last year, ETSU has a realistic chance to reach their goal.