NASHVILLE – Lipscomb men's basketball head coach Lennie Acuff announced Thursday that Romeao Ferguson will join the Bisons as a graduate transfer for the upcoming 2020-21 season. Ferguson arrives in the Music City after a successful career at Belmont Abbey.
"We are excited and thankful to add Romeao to the Bison basketball family," Acuff said. "We were looking for an experienced, versatile player who could help us right away at multiple positions and we are confident we found that.
"While his accomplishments on the court are impressive, we were more convinced he was a great fit for our program after amount of positive feedback we received from so many people concerning his high character and work ethic. We got better today not only as a basketball team, but as a program."
Ferguson, a 6-foot-5 guard out of Burlington, North Carolina, spent the last two seasons at Belmont Abbey where he helped the Crusaders to back-to-back 20-win seasons and a pair of 2nd-place finishes in the Conference Carolinas.
In just 61 games for the Crusaders, Ferguson scored 972 points and shot 51.5 percent from the floor while also adding 443 rebounds, 247 assists and 83 steals. He earned First Team All-Conference Carolinas honors twice, was voted the league's Defensive Player of the Year and was also selected to the NABC All-District Second Team.
In his final season at Belmont Abbey, Ferguson averaged 17.9 points (second on team), 7.3 rebounds (led team) and a conference-best 4.7 assists per game on 54.9 percent shooting. He pulled down seven double-doubles and recorded 11 double-digit scoring games, including a career high 29 against King University (Jan. 25).
Ferguson played a major role in leading the Crusaders to their third-straight trip to the Conference Carolinas Championship Final and helped Belmont Abbey (21-10) to its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2013 after receiving an at-large bid as the No. 8 seed in the Southeast Regional just days before the tournament was canceled.
He finished in the Top-10 in the Conference Carolinas in 12 different statistical categories this past season:
- total assists (1st – 141)
- assists per game (1st - 4.7)
- total minutes (2nd – 1023)
- minutes per game (2nd – 34.1)
- defensive rebounds (2nd – 184)
- field goals made (3rd – 201/366)
- total rebounds (3rd – 220)
- scoring (4th – 17.9)
- total points (5th – 537)
- rebounds per game (5th – 7.3)
- three-point percentage (7th – 45.1)
- field goal percentage (9th – 54.9)
After transferring from Lincoln Memorial where he spent his freshman (16-17) and redshirt freshman (17-18) seasons, Ferguson burst onto the scene in his first season as a Crusader in 2018-19, scoring in double figures in 24 of 31 games. The athletic wing averaged 15.4 ppg, a team-high 7.8 rpg, and 3.6 apg on his way to being named First Team All-Conference. He was second on the team in scoring and assists.
He posted seven 20-point games and a team-high six double-doubles, helping him bring home three conference Player of the Week honors.
In his redshirt freshman season at LMU, Ferguson played limited action in 31 games, seeing just 8.4 minutes each time out. He averaged 4.5 points and 1.6 rebounds per game on 59.8 percent shooting from the floor.
If there is nothing else, Ferguson has at least proven all he knows how to do is win. Dating back over the last six years to his junior year in high school, the teams in which Ferguson has been a part of is 160-31 (.838).
He went 54-5 in his final two years at the prep level, while the two LMU squads combined for a 62-8 record and Belmont Abbey a 44-18 mark.
HIGH SCHOOL
Attended Moravian Prep and graduated from the Burlington School in Burlington, N.C…Was also offered by The Citadel, Coker, Lenoir-Rhyne and Newberry…Was named to the Times-News All-Region team at the Burlington School, who he led to a 31-1 record and a State Championship in 2015…Averaged 10 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game as a senior at Moravian.
