East Tennessee State Basketball: 2023-24 season preview for the Bucs
By Jay George
New head coach Brooks Savage makes his return to Johnson City as he looks to return the Bucs to a successful and fruitful program.
For a smaller mid-major school, East Tennessee State Basketball (ETSU) has really had impressive success in recent decades. Since 2000, East Tennessee has made the NCAA Tournament five separate times. Although losing in the first round after being paired with some pretty high seeded teams, this feat is no small matter for a school hailing out of the Southern Conference (SoCon). In that time span the Bucs have also won their division, the SoCon North, six times with four in a row at one point and won the conference tournament 4 times.
All of these accolades came under three coaching regimes in Ed DeChellis (1996-2003), Murry Bartow (2004-2015), and Steve Forbes (2016-2020). In the three seasons since, the program has faced some turmoil on the coaching front with Forbes’ successor Jason Shay lasting one season and then Desmond Oliver lasting two.
This leaves the program on another new horizon with Brooks Savage as The Bucs 19th head coach now being at the helm for the first time. Savage comes from Forbes coaching tree having been at ETSU previously and moving to Wake Forest with Forbes for a time before his return to Johnson City. Everywhere Savage has been, he has seen success. In his time prior to Wake Forest and ETSU, he was at UT Chattanooga which leaves him very familiar with the Southern Conference and all the nuances of the league. This makes him a great fit for ETSU.
As far as the roster goes, Savage got to work with an overhaul on a lot of fronts. Some strong recruiting gives this team four promising freshman, and seven transfers through the portal. With such a revamp of a roster brings a new identity to a team. The good news in terms of continuity for the Buccaneers is the four remaining players saw the court a decent amount of time for the Bucs last season. Jaden Seymour, Justice Smith, and Allen Strothers all played in at least 25 games or more making a substantial amount of starts for East Tennessee.
With these pieces all put together, and a community ready to return to some successful seasons, it could be a promising year for ETSU as we break down the roster, schedule and more.