NEWBERRY, S.C. – Two former Newberry College men's basketball players, Luke Gibson and Marshall Lange signed professional contracts in The Basketball League. Gibson joined the Atlanta Empire and Lange signed with the Carolina Coyotes. 
 
The Empire and Coyotes are part of the 29 team-league spanning 21 states. Atlanta and Carolina joined in 2021, three years after the league's inception in 2018.  The Basketball League plans on adding five teams in 2022.
 
The Empire and Coyotes are scheduled to play 24 games each this season. The season opens up on April 9. Gibson and the Empire will play the Tampa Bay Titans on Friday. On April 10, Gibson and Lange will suit up against each other in Atlanta for the Coyotes season opener. Live steaming of games are available here. Follow along with the league at TheBasketballLeague.net and on Twitter.

The Basketball League has a shop for team merchandise including Coyotes and Empire gear.
 
Gibson played 112 games for Newberry and started in 69 of them. He averaged 7.3 points in his career and scored in double figures as a junior (11.2 ppg) and as a senior (11.9 ppg). As a senior, he started all 29 games, averaging 30 minutes per game. He had career highs in rebounds (2.5 reb/g) and 2.4 (assist/ g). He set his career-high scoring total in his final game with 23 points on 10 made field goals. On the season, he shot .463 from 3-point range and .833 from the free throw line.
 
Gibson was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Honors Court in 20201, was a 2020 Google Cloud All-American, and won the conference's Men's Basketball Scholar Athlete of the Year Award twice. Gibson was an accounting major with a 3.97 grade point average. He was on the Dean's List four times, a three-time SAC Commissioner's Honor Roll selection, a CoSIDA Academic All-District pick and a CoSIDA Academic All-America honoree.
 
Lange played 113 games for the Wolves, starting in 74 contests. He scored an average of 12.1 points per game in his career. His career-high for points per game came in 2018-19 when he was second on the team with 14.0 points per game. The High Point, N.C. native's highest scoring performance was his 30-point game at Carson-Newman. In 2016-17, Lange was named Freshman of the Year in the South Atlantic Conference and ECAC Rookie of the Year.

Along with Gibson, Lange was named to the NABC Honors Court in 2019-20.