WHITE SULPHUR SPGS- Per a press release from Intersport on Monday afternoon, June 10, the basketball tournament at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur this November has added what’s called a ‘River Division’ that will take place about a week before the Power-4 tournament known as the ‘Mountain Division.’
Charleston Southern, Texas Rio Grande Valley, Tennessee Tech, and VMI will don the court from November 15-16 and the following week, on Nov. 22 and 24, Pitt, UCF, LSU, and Wisconsin will play as part of the Mountain Division.
Complete Schedules including matchups and tip times will be announced at a later date.
Some info on the newly added River Division teams is below:
Charleston Southern
- Charleston Southern is entering its first full season under the direction of head coach Saah Nimley, who took after seven games last season in an interim role and earned the official title the week heading into the conference tournament
- Nimley was a four-year star for the Bucs, earning Big South Player of the Year honors and Honorable Mention All-American honors as a senior in 2015 before joining the coaching staff in 2019
- The Bucs are slated to return four starters from last season’s squad in RJ Johnson, A’lahn Sumler, Taje’ Kelly and DJ Patrick who were CSU’s top four leading scorers on the team.
UTRGV
- UTRGV welcomes Kahil Fennell as its new head coach, who comes to the program after spending the last two seasons at BYU, which won 23 games and was ranked in the AP Top 25 poll in 14 of 15 weeks
- Following his playing career at the University of the Redlands, Fennell spent time on the coaching staffs at UT Permian Basin, Portland State, Louisville and BYU
- UTRGV is slated to return two of its top five scorers from last year, and both have experience in the starting lineup – Hasan Abdul-Hakim and JJ Howard
Tennessee Tech
- John Pelphrey, a 30-year coaching veteran with previous head coaching stops at South Alabama and Arkansas, enters his sixth season with Tennessee Tech
- An All-American at Kentucky, Pelphrey was head coach at South Alabama from 2002-07 and at Arkansas from 2007-11 the spent four years each as the associate head coach at Florida (2011-15) and Alabama (2016-19)
- The Golden Eagles are set to return three players who started at least 14 of the team’s games last season, including Daniel Egbuniwe (29), Rodney Johnson Jr. (14) and Kyle Layton (14)
VMI
- Andrew Wilson is entering his third season as the head coach of the VMI program, his first head coaching opportunity after a proven record as a longtime assistant
- A Florida State alum who ended his career as a senior captain with the program, Wilson spent 16 seasons as an assistant coach between Charleston, SUNY Binghamton, Georgia Southern and James Madison
- The Keydets return a pair of role players from last season’s squad, including AJ Clark – who finished second on the team in steals last year – and Maurice Wright Jr, who each have starting experience
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