On Wednesday, Nov. 1, Samford basketball hosted a season kickoff event at local Homewood restaurant, SoHo Social. The event opened with statements from President Beck Taylor, Women’s Basketball Head Coach Carley Kuhns, and Men’s Basketball Head Coach Bucky McMillan. Hoops in Homewood was a community-wide event, and Taylor emphasized the importance of community and student support in his opening statement.
“This celebrates Homewood’s university, Samford University- and we’re so grateful to be Homewood’s university, so we want to see all of our Homewood fans out at our games,” Taylor said.
The first 100 Samford students who attended the event and showed their student ID were awarded with a free dinner, and Samford Athletics handed out free Hoops in Homewood t-shirts for students and community members.
Coach McMillan congratulated the Samford and Homewood community on last year’s basketball victories.
McMillan stated, “We won the SoCon last year for the first time in the history of the school. All these games were decided at home, and I just want to tell everyone congratulations to everybody for rallying together to get it done and protect our home court. It means so much to this group, and it means so much to me personally.”
The night continued with a multitude of contests between the two teams, where Samford players showed off their skills for the crowd. They also invited students to play a game of knockout with Samford stars like Jermaine Marshall and Masyn Marchbanks. The night concluded with a meet and greet, where attendees could get free autographed posters from members of both teams.
Coach Kuhns stressed the importance of fan attendance for WBB’s opening day matchup against Auburn-Montgomery as the team and Samford fans seek to break the fan attendance record for a women’s basketball game.
Women’s basketball hosts AUM for their season opener on Nov. 6 at 11 a.m., where Samford Athletics hopes to break the university’s record for fan attendance at a women’s basketball game. Men’s basketball will travel to Purdue to face the No. 3-ranked Boilermakers on the same day.
