Sam Men Take On LIU-Brooklyn Friday in New York
12/17/2015 12:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Already this season, the Sam Houston men's basketball team has faced a “Murderer's Row” of opponents on the road, traveling to face two top 20 teams (SMU and California) and Big 12 member Texas Tech in Lubbock.
Friday night the Bearkats begin their longest road swing of the 2015-16 season with a 6 p.m. contest at the Steinberg Wellness Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. against the LIU Blackbirds.
The three-week, six-game swing continues next week as Sam Houston opens play in the WestStar Bank Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational in El Paso Monday, December 21 against UT-Irvine. The oldest holiday tournament in college men's basketball, the Sun Bowl event also will feature host UTEP and Norfolk State in a opening round match-up.
After a break for Christmas, the Kats wrap up non-conference play against North Texas in Denton Tuesday, December 29. Then Sam Houston opens Southland action on the road at Incarnate Word in San Antonio and Northwestern State in Natchitoches, La., January 2 and 4.
“We've been on the road a lot this year,” Sam Houston head coach Jason Hooten said. “Earlier this week, I saw we ranked 94th in the NCAA Division I RPI standings. With a 4-5 record, that tells you the strength of our schedule.”
Friday's opponent LIU-Brooklyn sports a 5-3 record that includes victories over Loyola-Maryland, Maine and Niagara. The Blackbirds' 6-7 junior forward Jerome Frink was named as Northeast Conference men's basketball “Player of the Week” for the second time this season after scoring 30 points and pulling down 10 rebounds in the 89-84 overtime game with Fordham.
The trip to New York comes on the heels of the announcement that Sam Houston has lost both its point guards to injuries for the season with both senior Paul Baxter (foot) and Ameer Jackson (knee) red-shirting this year.
“Obviously that's disappointing news,” Hooten said. “We're just trying to make the guys that are out there get better. We're mixing and matching to find the right chemistry every time on the floor.”
The head coach sees the coming three-week, six-game road swing as an opportunity for his team.
“This swing will be a point in time that will tell us a lot about ourselves as a team,” Hooten said. “You get away on the road playing great competition and you focus strictly on basketball. We're playing a really good LIU team Friday and then go up against an outstanding UC-Irvine squad next week in El Paso.”
Sam Houston stands 4-5 for the season after victories at home in Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum over Sul Ross 109-61 and LeTourneau 96-54.
“I was really happy with our defensive intensity in the first 10 minutes of the last game,” Hooten said. “That's what we've really been working on. We've talked a lot with the players about us getting better defensively. It's pretty obvious that, when we shoot the ball, we score pretty well. But we have to continue to improve defensively.”
Jamal Williams, a 6-4 sophomore who averaged 16 minutes a game last year, leads the Bearkats with 29 assists this year and is averaging 8.3 points per game. Junior college transfers 6-0 Jovante' Spivey and 6-1 Jalin Barnes have played well in starting roles.
“We're really please with Jamal at the point,” Hooten said. “Javonte' has really stepped up and Jalin is playing a lot better off the ball now. We're coming together.”
With a 16.9 scoring average, Frink is one of three Blackbird players with double figure point means. Martin Hermannsson and Aakim Saintil add 15.8 and 15.4 points, respectively.
LIU comes into the contest averaging 76.1 points per game while the Bearkats own a team scoring mean of 78.4.
“We're going to get better,” Hooten said. “We're playing better competition and we're going to have ourselves a chance to see how we do now with some of these changes.”
Sam Houston's next home game is Saturday January 9 when the Bearkats play host to New Orleans in a men's and women's Southland doubleheader. The women will tipoff at 2 p.m. with the men to follow at 4:30 p.m.
Tickets for Sam Houston men's and women's basketball at Johnson Coliseum are available now online at www.gobearkats.com .
