Mercer basketball will have a special guest from the Atlanta Braves at Saturday’s games
A member of the World Champion Atlanta Braves will be in attendance for Mercer basketball’s doubleheader on Saturday.
Blooper, the team’s mascot, has made several stops around the Southeast since the team won the title in the fall.
The next stop on his victory tour is in Macon for a pair of Mercer basketball games. The women will take on Samford at 2:30 p.m. and will be followed by the men’s game against Furman at 6 p.m.
Fans can get tickets for the game at Hawkins arena or online. Here is a look at how the season has gone so far for the Mercer basketball teams.
Women’s basketball
The Bears currently sit atop the SoCon with a 5-1 record in conference. They are defending conference champions and will be looking to get back to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.
The Bears are 12-6 overall with key wins over Appalachian State, Troy and Chattanooga. The lone conference loss came in a 69-66 loss to Furman. The Bears bounced back with a blowout win over Wofford.
Mercer currently has three players averaging double figures including Amoria Neal-Tysor, who leads the team with 14.1 points per game. Jaron Doughtery and Shannon Titus are the other two players who make up the bulk of the Bear’s scoring.
With eight games left in the regular season, Mercer will look to lock up the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament with strong performances down the stretch.
Men’s basketball
The men’s team is coming off of a surprising conference final appearance last season and are once again looking for a chance to get back into the Big Dance for the first time under head coach Greg Gary. It would also be the team’s first trip since the 2013-14 season when Mercer stunned Duke in the first round of the tournament.
This season, the Bears are 12-8 overall but are an impressive 5-2 in the conference just one game out of first place with two matchups left against the leader Chattanooga.
Felipe Haase leads the team in scoring with 15.5 points per game. He also leads the team in rebounds, assists and steals. The Bears have found a secondary scorer in Jalen Johnson, a graduate transfer, who has scored in double figures in all but three games this season.
