Texas Tech University Athletics
Thursday, March 15
Dallas, Texas
6:27 PM
Texas Tech Athletics
vs
Stephen F. Austin
Red Raider Preview: Stephen F. Austin
March 14, 2018 | Men's Basketball
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The Red Raiders will make their 16th NCAA Tournament appearance on Thursday.
DALLAS, Texas – The No. 14 Texas Tech men's basketball team will make its second NCAA Tournament appearance in the last three seasons when the Red Raiders take on Stephen F. Austin during Thursday's opening round of March Madness.
Tipoff is slated for 6:27 p.m. CT from the American Airlines Center, home of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. The game will be televised by TruTV in addition to being available on the NCAA March Madness app. Spero Dedes, Steve Smith, Len Elmore and Ros Gold-Onwude will serve as the announcing team.
TruTV can be found on DirecTV channel 246 and Dish channel 242 coupled with channel 1164 on AT&T U-Verse and channel 32 on Suddenlink in the Lubbock area.
The Texas Tech Sports Network will carry the game live on its flagship stations Double T 97.3 FM, 100.7 FM The Score and 950 AM in Lubbock. Geoff Haxton and Chris Level will have the call. The radio broadcast also will be available on the Texas Tech Sports Network radio affiliates. Fans can interact with Thursday's broadcast by following @GunsUpRadio on Twitter.
Westwood One's NCAA radio broadcast featuring Ryan Radtke and Jim Jackson will air on Sirius channel 138 and XM channel 202. That broadcast also can be heard on the TuneIn Radio app.
The Red Raiders (24-9) have captured a No. 3 seed in the East region which matches the program's highest seed since the 1996 season under James Dickey. Texas Tech defeated Northern Illinois and North Carolina en route to a NCAA Sweet 16 trip that season. The 24 victories also are the most for the program going back to the 1995-96 team.
The Red Raiders will enter the NCAA Tournament as a ranked team for the first time dating back to the 2004-05 campaign under Bob Knight and also made a run to the NCAA Sweet 16 that season with victories over UCLA and Gonzaga.
Texas Tech has been ranked as a consensus Top 15 program over the last 10 weeks by the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls. The Red Raiders piled up a program single-season record 11 wins and registered a second place regular season finish in the Big 12 this season.
Stephen F. Austin (28-6) is making its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last five seasons. The Lumberjacks defeated Central Arkansas, Nicholls State and Southeastern Louisiana to claim the Southland Conference tournament title last weekend. SFA knocked off VCU and West Virginia in the 2014 and 2016 NCAA Tournaments, respectively.
Texas Tech possesses an 8-5 series advantage over the Lumberjacks on the strength of seven consecutive victories in the series going back to the 1999-200 season. The Red Raiders have won five of those seven outings by double figures.
"I think the people on the committee are really smart at what they do," Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard said. "Kyle Keller is the coach at SFA. He's a friend of mine, and he's somebody that I have a lot of respect for. He was an assistant coach at Oklahoma State for Coach Sutton. He worked at Texas A&M when they built there program to relative very quickly. Kyle does a great job. He's been the head coach at Tyler Junior College early in his career. It starts with him and understanding that we are going to play against a well-coached team. We also know that Stephen F. Austin has very good players. We recruit against them sometimes. The history of their program in recent years speaks for itself with four NCAA Tournaments in the last five years. Those of us in the Big 12 know they beat West Virginia and Coach Huggins' team a couple of years ago in the first round. Stephen F. Austin has our full attention and our full respect. It's a tournament game. I really think the seeds, the rankings and all of that stuff that goes on around the March Madness is great for the game, but it means absolutely nothing when the ball goes up. This is going to be two good teams that have earned the right to be in the national tournament, and the team that plays the best on Thursday will be the team that advances."
ABOUT TEXAS TECH
The Red Raiders will take the Big 12's top defensive unit into the NCAA Tournament in scoring defense (64.7 PPG) and opponent field goal percentage (40.3). Texas Tech also ranks inside the NCAA's Top 50 in six additional categories which include turnovers forced (15.2) and turnover margin (+2.6).
Keenan Evans has provided 17.5 points, 3.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game. He has regained his rhythm and eclipsed the 20-point barrier in two of his three outings in March. Evans is USBWA All-America Second-Team and Sporting News Third-Team All-America selection. Evans has registered double figures in 27 of 32 games this season.
Jarrett Culver and Zhaire Smith has chipped in 11.7 and 11.2 points per game, respectively. The duo is ranked third among Big 12 freshmen scoring duos only behind Oklahoma's Trae Young and Brady Manek followed by Iowa State's Lindell Wigginton and Cameron Lard.
Smith has notched double figures in nine of his last 11 games. He has posted 13.4 points per game over the 11-game stretch headed by a pair of games over 20 points against Iowa State on Feb. 7 and then No. 8 Kansas on Feb. 24.
Culver has secured both of Texas Tech's double-doubles on the season. His 385 points are second among freshmen in program history and enter Thursday's game 28 away from passing Martin Zeno for the program's all-time list.
Texas Tech's bench has been led by Niem Stevenson (7.5 PPG), Zach Smith (5.9 PPG), Tommy Hamilton IV (5.8 PPG), Brandone Francis (5.3 PPG) and Davide Moretti (3.3 PPG).
Stevenson has garnered 13.5 points per game and connected on 10 three-pointers over his last four games. He exploded for a career-best 24 points at West Virginia.
Smith became the 41st player in program history to surpass 1,000 career points during the West Virginia game at the Big 12 Championships.
Justin Gray and Norense Odiase have secured 5.0 and 4.1 points per game, respectively. Gray is coming off five points and seven rebounds against West Virginia last time out.
"We feel good," Beard said. "We have the 12-hour rule on our team where we celebrate a win and after 12 hours we will get back to work. If we have some adversity, run out of time and lose a game then we beat ourselves up, do a little soul searching and get some things fixed. Then, 12 hours later, we got to go. In the Big 12 tournament, I was really proud. We put ourselves in a position and beat a NCAA Tournament team in Texas, who is one of the most talented teams in college basketball. We advanced to the semifinal game. We played West Virginia who some people picked for the Final Four this year. It was a one possession game where we don't feel like we played our best. Certainly, we can make more free throws to help ourselves. From a confidence standpoint, I think we are getting back on track. We are playing some of our best basketball of the season right now. I've been on the other side of these games. Our Little Rock team was the 13-seed when we beat Purdue. I think we know how difficult it's going to be. Nobody respects our opponent more than we do, but we have a certain level of confidence in our program now too because we've earned the right to be here."
ABOUT STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
The Lumberjacks have amassed 81.1 points per game and forced their opponents into 20.0 turnovers per game. SFA is one of nine Division I basketball programs to rack up 25 wins or more on the season and are joined by Arizona, Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Michigan State, VCU, Villanova and Wichita State.
The Lumberjacks have three players averaging double figures which include Shannon Bogues (15.4 PPG), Kevon Harris (14.6 PPG) and T.J. Holyfield (13.0 PPG).
Bogues has garnered double figures 25 times which includes nine of his last 12 outings since the calendar turned to February. He exploded for a career-high 35 points aided by six three-pointers against Northwestern State on Feb. 10 and tallied 27 points versus Nicholls State in the Southland semifinals. Bogues has poured in 30-points or more on four occasions.
Harris is right behind Bogues with 22 games of over 10 points fueled by eight games of 20-plus points. His season high was 31 points versus Rice on Dec. 9. Harris has drained a team-leading 57 three-pointers and added three double-doubles. Harris notched 12 points and 11 rebounds during the Central Arkansas game in the Southland quarterfinals.
Holyfield has started all 100 games of his career and has worked his way to 58 career games in double figures. He pieced together 10-plus points in all three of SFA's games at the Southland Tournament highlighted by consecutive double-doubles. He totaled 11 points and 11 rebounds against Nicholls State coupled with a 13-point, 12-rebound effort versus Southeastern Louisiana.
Ivan Canete has chipped in 9.4 and 3.0 assists per game followed by Leon Gilmore III and Ty Charles who have provided 9.3 and 8.0 points per game, respectively. Canete has reached double digit points in five of his last seven appearances where he has hit on 11 treys. Charles has been inserted into the starting lineup for SFA's last five games. He has eight of his nine games in double figures since the beginning of conference play.
UP NEXT
The winner of Thursday's first round game advances to face either No. 6 seed Florida or No. 11 St. Bonaventure in the second round on Saturday. A tip time for Saturday's second round will be announced on Friday. The game will be televised by either CBS, TBS, TNT or TruTV.
Tipoff is slated for 6:27 p.m. CT from the American Airlines Center, home of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. The game will be televised by TruTV in addition to being available on the NCAA March Madness app. Spero Dedes, Steve Smith, Len Elmore and Ros Gold-Onwude will serve as the announcing team.
TruTV can be found on DirecTV channel 246 and Dish channel 242 coupled with channel 1164 on AT&T U-Verse and channel 32 on Suddenlink in the Lubbock area.
The Texas Tech Sports Network will carry the game live on its flagship stations Double T 97.3 FM, 100.7 FM The Score and 950 AM in Lubbock. Geoff Haxton and Chris Level will have the call. The radio broadcast also will be available on the Texas Tech Sports Network radio affiliates. Fans can interact with Thursday's broadcast by following @GunsUpRadio on Twitter.
Westwood One's NCAA radio broadcast featuring Ryan Radtke and Jim Jackson will air on Sirius channel 138 and XM channel 202. That broadcast also can be heard on the TuneIn Radio app.
The Red Raiders (24-9) have captured a No. 3 seed in the East region which matches the program's highest seed since the 1996 season under James Dickey. Texas Tech defeated Northern Illinois and North Carolina en route to a NCAA Sweet 16 trip that season. The 24 victories also are the most for the program going back to the 1995-96 team.
The Red Raiders will enter the NCAA Tournament as a ranked team for the first time dating back to the 2004-05 campaign under Bob Knight and also made a run to the NCAA Sweet 16 that season with victories over UCLA and Gonzaga.
Texas Tech has been ranked as a consensus Top 15 program over the last 10 weeks by the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls. The Red Raiders piled up a program single-season record 11 wins and registered a second place regular season finish in the Big 12 this season.
Stephen F. Austin (28-6) is making its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last five seasons. The Lumberjacks defeated Central Arkansas, Nicholls State and Southeastern Louisiana to claim the Southland Conference tournament title last weekend. SFA knocked off VCU and West Virginia in the 2014 and 2016 NCAA Tournaments, respectively.
Texas Tech possesses an 8-5 series advantage over the Lumberjacks on the strength of seven consecutive victories in the series going back to the 1999-200 season. The Red Raiders have won five of those seven outings by double figures.
"I think the people on the committee are really smart at what they do," Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard said. "Kyle Keller is the coach at SFA. He's a friend of mine, and he's somebody that I have a lot of respect for. He was an assistant coach at Oklahoma State for Coach Sutton. He worked at Texas A&M when they built there program to relative very quickly. Kyle does a great job. He's been the head coach at Tyler Junior College early in his career. It starts with him and understanding that we are going to play against a well-coached team. We also know that Stephen F. Austin has very good players. We recruit against them sometimes. The history of their program in recent years speaks for itself with four NCAA Tournaments in the last five years. Those of us in the Big 12 know they beat West Virginia and Coach Huggins' team a couple of years ago in the first round. Stephen F. Austin has our full attention and our full respect. It's a tournament game. I really think the seeds, the rankings and all of that stuff that goes on around the March Madness is great for the game, but it means absolutely nothing when the ball goes up. This is going to be two good teams that have earned the right to be in the national tournament, and the team that plays the best on Thursday will be the team that advances."
ABOUT TEXAS TECH
The Red Raiders will take the Big 12's top defensive unit into the NCAA Tournament in scoring defense (64.7 PPG) and opponent field goal percentage (40.3). Texas Tech also ranks inside the NCAA's Top 50 in six additional categories which include turnovers forced (15.2) and turnover margin (+2.6).
Keenan Evans has provided 17.5 points, 3.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game. He has regained his rhythm and eclipsed the 20-point barrier in two of his three outings in March. Evans is USBWA All-America Second-Team and Sporting News Third-Team All-America selection. Evans has registered double figures in 27 of 32 games this season.
Jarrett Culver and Zhaire Smith has chipped in 11.7 and 11.2 points per game, respectively. The duo is ranked third among Big 12 freshmen scoring duos only behind Oklahoma's Trae Young and Brady Manek followed by Iowa State's Lindell Wigginton and Cameron Lard.
Smith has notched double figures in nine of his last 11 games. He has posted 13.4 points per game over the 11-game stretch headed by a pair of games over 20 points against Iowa State on Feb. 7 and then No. 8 Kansas on Feb. 24.
Culver has secured both of Texas Tech's double-doubles on the season. His 385 points are second among freshmen in program history and enter Thursday's game 28 away from passing Martin Zeno for the program's all-time list.
Texas Tech's bench has been led by Niem Stevenson (7.5 PPG), Zach Smith (5.9 PPG), Tommy Hamilton IV (5.8 PPG), Brandone Francis (5.3 PPG) and Davide Moretti (3.3 PPG).
Stevenson has garnered 13.5 points per game and connected on 10 three-pointers over his last four games. He exploded for a career-best 24 points at West Virginia.
Smith became the 41st player in program history to surpass 1,000 career points during the West Virginia game at the Big 12 Championships.
Justin Gray and Norense Odiase have secured 5.0 and 4.1 points per game, respectively. Gray is coming off five points and seven rebounds against West Virginia last time out.
"We feel good," Beard said. "We have the 12-hour rule on our team where we celebrate a win and after 12 hours we will get back to work. If we have some adversity, run out of time and lose a game then we beat ourselves up, do a little soul searching and get some things fixed. Then, 12 hours later, we got to go. In the Big 12 tournament, I was really proud. We put ourselves in a position and beat a NCAA Tournament team in Texas, who is one of the most talented teams in college basketball. We advanced to the semifinal game. We played West Virginia who some people picked for the Final Four this year. It was a one possession game where we don't feel like we played our best. Certainly, we can make more free throws to help ourselves. From a confidence standpoint, I think we are getting back on track. We are playing some of our best basketball of the season right now. I've been on the other side of these games. Our Little Rock team was the 13-seed when we beat Purdue. I think we know how difficult it's going to be. Nobody respects our opponent more than we do, but we have a certain level of confidence in our program now too because we've earned the right to be here."
ABOUT STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
The Lumberjacks have amassed 81.1 points per game and forced their opponents into 20.0 turnovers per game. SFA is one of nine Division I basketball programs to rack up 25 wins or more on the season and are joined by Arizona, Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Michigan State, VCU, Villanova and Wichita State.
The Lumberjacks have three players averaging double figures which include Shannon Bogues (15.4 PPG), Kevon Harris (14.6 PPG) and T.J. Holyfield (13.0 PPG).
Bogues has garnered double figures 25 times which includes nine of his last 12 outings since the calendar turned to February. He exploded for a career-high 35 points aided by six three-pointers against Northwestern State on Feb. 10 and tallied 27 points versus Nicholls State in the Southland semifinals. Bogues has poured in 30-points or more on four occasions.
Harris is right behind Bogues with 22 games of over 10 points fueled by eight games of 20-plus points. His season high was 31 points versus Rice on Dec. 9. Harris has drained a team-leading 57 three-pointers and added three double-doubles. Harris notched 12 points and 11 rebounds during the Central Arkansas game in the Southland quarterfinals.
Holyfield has started all 100 games of his career and has worked his way to 58 career games in double figures. He pieced together 10-plus points in all three of SFA's games at the Southland Tournament highlighted by consecutive double-doubles. He totaled 11 points and 11 rebounds against Nicholls State coupled with a 13-point, 12-rebound effort versus Southeastern Louisiana.
Ivan Canete has chipped in 9.4 and 3.0 assists per game followed by Leon Gilmore III and Ty Charles who have provided 9.3 and 8.0 points per game, respectively. Canete has reached double digit points in five of his last seven appearances where he has hit on 11 treys. Charles has been inserted into the starting lineup for SFA's last five games. He has eight of his nine games in double figures since the beginning of conference play.
UP NEXT
The winner of Thursday's first round game advances to face either No. 6 seed Florida or No. 11 St. Bonaventure in the second round on Saturday. A tip time for Saturday's second round will be announced on Friday. The game will be televised by either CBS, TBS, TNT or TruTV.
Less than 2??4?? hours from now, #MarchMadness goes live. #WreckEm #4To1 pic.twitter.com/LLhXqB6Efo
— Texas Tech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) March 15, 2018
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