Stephen F. Austin
New Orleans
'Jacks' Lengthy Road Trip Starts with Wednesday Night Southland Battle at New Orleans
1/15/2019 7:26:00 PM | Men's Basketball
SFA and New Orleans meet for seventh time, 'Jacks trying to dodge third-straight loss
Game Sixteen
SFA (8-7, 1-2 Southland) at New Orleans (8-7, 3-1 Southland)
Wednesday, Jan. 16 | 7:00 p.m. | Lakefront Arena (8,785) | New Orleans, La.
Tickets | Watch | Listen (Q107.7/TuneIn) | Live Stats | SFA Game Notes | New Orleans Game Notes
Play-by-Play/Analysis | Rob Meyers
THE OPENING TIP
• Hoping to put the brakes on a two-game Southland Conference skid, the SFA men's basketball team sets out on a journey to the Big Easy for a Wednesday night showdown with New Orleans inside Lakefront Arena. Tip-off in the seventh all-time meeting between the two programs is set for 7:00 p.m.
• Also headed toward New Orleans is Rob Meyers where the longtime Lumberjack play-by-play man will deliver the call of the game on Q107.7 FM in Nacogdoches and nationwide on the TuneIn app.
• Held to just eight points in his last outing, junior guard/forward Kevon Harris will try to become the 31st player in program history to reach the 1,000-point plateau when he takes the court this week. The Ellenwood, Ga., native needs 18 more markers to reach an even 1,000 points in his collegiate career.
• With a 17-point outing against Northwestern State last Saturday night, senior guard Shannon Bogues extended his streak of double-digit scoring games to 16. That run dates back to the 'Jacks' 2017-18 season finale against Texas Tech in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament and it's the longest streak of 10+ point games by a Lumberjack since Thomas Walkup's run of 17-straight that spanned the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.
• SFA is in search of its first road victory in the 2019 calendar year. In all, the 'Jacks are 1-3 in road tilts so far this season with their lone win on the road coming on Tuesday, Dec. 18 at Baylor (59-58).
• Close games have been something of a regular occurrence for the 'Jacks this season. Seven of SFA's 15 games thus far have been decided by five or fewer points and the 'Jacks are 4-3 in those matchups.
NO, UNFORTUNATELY IT'S NOT A TYPO
• Heading into Wednesday night's showdown at New Orleans, SFA finds itself in rather unfamiliar territory after suffering back-to-back Southland Conference losses.
• SFA has dropped consecutive Southland Conference contests on just two occasions since the start of the 2011-12 season including once in the 2016-17 campaign. That year, much like what has happened so far, the 'Jacks won their opener in league play and fell in the next two Southland showdowns.
• There was a silver lining to those back-to-back losses, though. Each time it happened (once in the 2011-12 season and once in 2016-17), the 'Jacks bounced back and won three-straight Southland games.
• Back-to-back league losses have been a rarity for SFA as of late and three-straight league setbacks have been even more rare. The last time the 'Jacks dropped three consecutive Southland contests came in the 2006-07 season.
SCOUTING NEW ORLEANS | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATISTICS
• Almost unstoppable on their home floor of Lakefront Arena (7-1), New Orleans has won its last three games and is one of a trio of teams tied for second place in the most recent version of the Southland Conference standings. The Privateers, Abilene Christian and Nicholls trail league-leading Sam Houston State by a half-game.
• Electing to win by a scoring by committee game plan, the Privateers lead the Southland and rank 29th nationally in assists per game (16.5). Ezekiel Charles is the lone New Orleans player who averaged double-figures and leads the club with a scoring average of 12.1 points per game.
• In Southland games, Charles is pouring in points at a clip of 16.3 per game. Along with Charles, Bryson Robinson (13.0 ppg), Scott Plaisance, Jr., (11.0 ppg) and Damion Rosser (10.0 ppg) are all putting at least 10 points per outing through the team's four league games.
• One of the nation's scrappiest defensive teams, New Orleans ranks among the top five squads in all of NCAA Division I men's basketball in both steals per game (10.1, fourth in nation, first in Southland) and turnovers forced per game (19.13, fifth in nation, first in Southland).
• Another area where New Orleans' defense excels is in terms of shot blocking. The Privateers rank second in the Southland Conference and 62nd nationally with an average of 4.5 rejections per game. Leading the way in that category is Plaisance who blocks 1.08 shots per night.
LAST TIME OUT
• Shannon Bogues scored 17 points and Davonte Fitzgerald added 13 more but Northwestern State's Ishmael Lane played the role of hero by turning in a game-winning tip at the buzzer and the Demons shocked the 'Jacks, 61-59, Saturday night inside William R. Johnson Coliseum.
• SFA, who fell behind by nine at the break to the Demons, seemed poised to put the pesky Demons away when Bogues found Mitchell Seraille for a crowd-pleasing alley-oop jam that put the hosts ahead 56-52 with 3:22 left. Northwestern State, unfortunately, had other plans.
• Malik Metoyer scored the next five points of the game for the Demons before SFA junior Samuli Nieminen gave the home team the lead once more with a layup that made matters 58-57 with 1:52 to go.
• Kevon Harris split a pair of free throws and Northwestern State committed the last of its 23 turnovers with 38 seconds to go, giving the 'Jacks the ball with the score at 59-59. Bogues' final try fell shot and the Demons wound up the winners.
• A poor shooting performance did not help the 'Jacks' cause. SFA put up a shooting split of .328/.143/.615 in the loss and went just 3-of-21 from long range in all through the night. Though the 'Jacks finished with seven more free throw tries than Northwestern State, they could not convert those either and finished only 16-of-26 from the foul line.
• SFA's 59 points represented the team's fewest in a Southland Conference home game since they amassed 58 in a 58-49 league triumph over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on March 9, 2013.
• The 'Jacks' nine-point deficit at the half marked the fourth-straight time SFA has been behind heading into the second half. It was also the team's largest Southland Conference halftime deficit of the season.
• One area where the 'Jacks' excelled was ball security. SFA tied its season-low in turnovers by committing only 10 throwaways throughout the game. Additionally, the 'Jacks' defense stepped it up a notch or two as well by forcing 23 turnovers - tied for the most by an SFA opponent in 2018-19.
• Another area of concern for SFA was the team's bench production. The 'Jacks' reserves combined to produce just five points - the fewest in a game this season - in the loss to Northwestern State. Over the last two games, SFA's bench has combined to produce 11 of the team's 132 points (8.3-percent).
• Depth, something that has been lacking due to SFA's high amount of injuries, was on the 'Jacks' side Saturday. Juniors Aaron Augustin and Samuli Nieminen were finally cleared to return to action leading up to the game. Augustin had been sidelined for seven games in a row after coming down with mono while Nieminen suffered an injury that kept him out for 11-straight games.
• Nathan Bain took off for nine rebounds in the setback as did Harris. After those two, no other SFA player collected more than five rebounds.
COMING UP NEXT
• Traveling from the eastern-most Southland Conference institution to one of its western-most universities, the 'Jacks hop aboard a plane to the Alamo City where they will do battle with Incarnate Word Saturday afternoon. ESPN3 and the ESPN app will stream each and every second of the clash between the 'Jacks and Cardinals once it begins at 3:30 p.m.
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