Bolivar, Mo. – The SBU men's basketball team begins their season this weekend as they travel to Nashville, Tenn. They will take on two opponents from the GLIAC. Friday they will battle Grand Valley State at 3:00 PM and Saturday they will take on Ferris State at 1:00 PM. This is the first ever meeting for the Bearcats against either team.  
           
The Bearcat men's basketball team returns to action looking to stay atop the GLVC. Their first full year back from Covid, they finished with a 21-6 overall record and a 15-5 conference record. That was good enough to earn them the top seed in the GLVC tournament and their second straight West Division title.
 
"Our goals are to work really hard and make daily progress!  We are hoping to mesh our new guys with some key returners and develop and get better as the year goes." Head Coach Clark Sheehy said.
 
Sheehy returns as the head coach going into his 9^th season with a 118-105 record at SBU. Alongside Sheehy is his long-time assistant coach Aaron Niven, returning for his 5^th season at SBU.
 
"Coach Niven has been such a valuable member of our staff and does such a great job." Sheehy said, "he contributes so much day in day out to the atmosphere and culture of our program.  His consistency and dependability have meant so much to our program and its growth.  He has been such a key part of who we are and who we are trying to become!"
 
Joining the staff is graduate assistant Logan Riney. A recent graduate of former GLVC school Southern Indiana, Riney joins the program after being a four-year student assistant for the Screaming Eagles.
 
The Bearcats return not only two unanimous GLVC 1^st team players but also the GLVC Player of the Year Quinn Nelson (Ozark, MO). Starting in every single game of his college career, he holds SBU records for games started (108), minutes played (3351), 3-pt FG made (274), and FT percentage (.888).
 
"I'm extremely excited to get games going and start playing with these guys." Nelson said, "I think we have a young group this year mixed with some really good experience that can help us make a lot of games exciting. I can't wait to play in front of the home crowd again and see the support from SBU and the community."
 
The 2^nd and final Bearcat senior is point guard Mitch Ganote (Suwanee, GA.) Ganote also earned a unanimous GLVC 1^st team last season after averaging 13.4 PPG, 6.4 RPG, and 5.4 APG.
 
Other top returners for the Bearcats include junior RJ Crawford (Houston, Tex), junior Adyen Stone (Thayer, Mo), and sophomore Drew McMillin (Republic, Mo). Crawford is one of the three returning Bearcat starters from the year prior, where he averaged 12.9 PPG shooting just under 50% from the field. Stone had 54 total rebounds and a 49% FG percentage in his 234 minutes played last year. McMillin shot just under a 40% clip from beyond the arc last year knocking down 25 total 3-pointers.
 
The Bearcats also add a division 1, 6'11 transfer Sasha Glushkov and a 6'7 forward transfer in Garrett Streufert to the squad. Southwest Baptist also adds a multitude of true freshman to the team.