Eagles Drop First AAC Game of the Season

Cleveland, GA - The Eagles tipped off their 2023-24 AAC schedule with a road game against the Bears of Truett McConnell.  This first AAC game for the Eagles would be a struggle from start to finish as they would end up losing, 99 - 75.

Tyler Smith would not have his best game, but he did enough to get a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Smith was the top player in the game for the Eagles and will be the main focus on both ends of the floor. The team has a lot of new parts that will take some time to gel and come together as the season progresses. 

Newcomer Nate Jones, who got the start in the game, helped Smith in the scoring department scoring 17 points and Nekhi Fischer came off the bench to add 10 points. Freshman Carles Reisman was just shy of double-figures scoring 9 points in just 13 minutes of play.

The stats that will have to continue to see improvement is the turnover issue where the Eagles were at 16 total in the game, however, it was a slight improvement from the Freed-Hardeman game. The three-point shooting percentage will have to improve as well because the Eagles were only at 24% from behind the arc in this game shooting 2 for 25.  Those are two stats where the Eagles will have to see improvement to get things going in the right direction.

The Bears led from start to finish in this game, but it was not until about 10 minutes left in the first half that they pulled away and never looked back.  The point spread was as high as 33 at one point, but the Eagles were able to make a small run after the halftime break and cut the lead to just 20 points. The game felt like the Eagles would have another run to cut into the lead a little more, but the shots were not falling and the lead slowly climbed back around 30 for the last part of the second half.

The positives from the game were getting the three players in double-figure scoring (Smith, Jones, and Fischer) and the Freshman Reisman making the most of his time on the court to get the nine points. Point Guard Brandon Barron should be back at some point and this will help the ball control and possibly cut down on the turnovers.

The Eagles will need to rebound fast from this loss as they will have the Bulldogs from Tennessee Wesleyan at home this Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Brown Athletic Center.