MARSHALL, Texas – Coming home to Ornelas Gym after two tough road games last week, the East Texas Baptist University men's basketball team faces Sul Ross State University and Howard Payne University. ETBU will host SRSU on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. and HPU on Monday at 7:30 p.m.
In the first two American Southwest Conference games of the season, ETBU came away with a split on one-possession scores. ETBU lost their first game to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor despite a career high 30 points from
Robby Dooley and a double-double from
Landin Brown (19 points, 10 rebounds), 98-95. Then, last Saturday, ETBU hung on to a tight 97-95 victory over Concordia University Texas as Dooley finished with 21 points and
Nathan Fontenot canned 19 points.
ETBU averages 89.4 points per game while holding opponents to 84.4 ppg. Individually, Dooley leads the team with 21.2 ppg while Brown (14.6 ppg),
Westin Riddick (11.2 ppg),
Nathan Fontenot (11.0 ppg), and
Jarrell Taylor (10.8 ppg) all have double-digit scoring averages. Brown also leads the team in rebounds (37), assists (28), and steals (17) while
Zach Elliott has five blocks.
The Tigers return home at Ornelas Gym starting on Saturday taking on SRSU, the team that defeated them three times last season including the ASC Championship game. SRSU is 1-3 through four games following an 80-53 loss to the University of Texas Dallas. Stephen Walker and Tristan Lincon both lead the team with 10.8 ppg while Walker shares the rebound lead averaging 4.5 per game along with B.J Hollis.
Although this is a rematch of the title game, the memories of last year do not intend to phase ETBU as head coach
Brandon Curran explains. "This is a completely different year than last year," said Coach Curran. "They're a different team than they were last year. We have different pieces coming in this year. Again, we're just working on us and the things we can do to improve from last weekend. But Sul Ross is always a great challenge. Coach Carroll does a great job with those guys and I'm sure they'll be ready to play. But we're just trying to be the best we can be coming in on Saturday."
Monday night will see the Tigers play host to the Yellow Jackets of HPU, who fell victim to the Tigers last season 97-83. HPU recently picked up their second win of the season following a 69-65 win over UTD. Cole Shadd scores 16.3 ppg while sharing the rebound lead with Thomas Bingham with 45 total. Timothy Aguero leads the team with 33 assists and 10 steals.
These will be the final two games at home in 2018 as ETBU will travel to Centenary College on December 15 and then play two games in Georgia after Christmas.
