ABOUT THE GAME

• Millersville men’s basketball opens its 2023-24 season in the friendly confines of Pucillo Gymnasium with a weekend back-to-back against Livingstone and Virginia Union. Saturday marks the first-ever meeting between Millersville and Livingstone. The Marauders and Panthers, however, have a history that includes a match-up last season in Petersburg, Va., which a nationally ranked VUU club won 62-49. Drew Stover led the Marauders with 10 points and five rebounds.
• Millersville is 2-4 in season openers under the direction of Coach Casey Stitzel, but the Marauders have opened with a home game just once in his tenure. That was an 86-61 win over Frostburg State in 2021-22. Millersville has played just 11 season openers at home since 1997, going 8-3 in those games. 
   

SCOUTING THE MARAUDERS

• After a semester of growing pains in 2022-23, a young Millersville squad caught fire and came within a game of winning the PSAC East for a second consecutive year, posting a 15-7 conference record with forward Matt Dade earning All-PSAC East First Team honors. Dade leads a deep and talented roster that includes six players with starting experience. Dade is now a two-time All-PSAC East honoree after averaging 12.5 points a 5.0 rebounds per game in 2022-23. Fellow post player Drew Stover averaged 10.1 points per game, and the duo gives Millersville one of the best frontcourts in the entire PSAC. 
• While Dade and Stover anchor the interior, Millersville returns another two-time All-PSAC East performer to lead the backcourt. After missing all of 2022-23 recovering from a knee injury, Jaden Faulkner is back for his final season in Black & Gold. Faulkner enters the season 40 points away from 1,000, and he led the 2022 PSAC East champs in both scoring and assists. While his career started in 2018, Faulkner has missed nearly two full seasons with knee injuries, but he’s been a difference maker and will likely be just the fifth player in program history to reach 1,000 points and 400 assists. Faulkner is also on pace to join Mike Monroe and Frank Oslislo as the only Marauders to average over 14.0 points and 4.0 assists per game.
   

SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS

•  Virginia Union went 24-8 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2022-23, but this year’s team is a vastly different roster as it returns just two players. The Panthers opened their season last weekend in the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic with losses to Florida Southern and Emporia State. 
• Livingstone is coming off an 11-15 season and is led by 17th-year head coach James Stinson, who has guided the Bears to a pair of NCAA Tournaments in his tenure. 

SERIES HISTORY

• Sunday marks the third season in a row in which the two teams have played. Millersville won the 2021-22 game at home, 97-88. The all-time series between Millersville and VUU is split at five wins apiece. Millersville is 5-1 all-time at home against VUU. The Panthers lone win in Pucillo came in 1983. 
• The Last Meeting Virginia Union 62, Millersville 49 (11/12/2022): No. 23 Virginia Union outscored the Marauders 12-1 in the first three-plus minutes of the second half and held on for an 61-49 win. Virginia State used a bucket just before the first half buzzer to propel it toward a one-sided second half. Virginia Union's (2-0) Khalil Diggin's did the same for his team, hitting a floater with five seconds left for a 25-24 halftime lead. Virginia Union then drilled its first five shots of the second half to turn a one-point game into a double-digit lead in fewer than four minutes. Millersville did not make a field goal until Matt Dade scored with 16:17 to play. Virginia Union went on to shoot 60.9% from the field in the second half, one day after Virginia State shot 62% in the second.