Stephen F. Austin
Sam Houston State
'Jacks Battle Bearkats with Southland Conference Tournament Hopes on the Line
3/8/2019 1:20:00 PM | Men's Basketball
An SFA win ensures the 'Jacks the seventh seed in the Southland Conference Tournament
Game Thirty | Presented by Suddenlink
SFA (14-15, 7-10 Southland) vs. Sam Houston State (20-10, 15-2 Southland)
Saturday, March 9 | 4:30 p.m. | Nacogdoches, Texas | William R. Johnson Coliseum (7,203)
Tickets | Watch (ESPN3/ESPN app) | Listen (Q107.7/TuneIn) | Live Stats | SFA Game Notes | SHSU Game Notes
Play-by-Play/Analysis (ESPN3) | Lincoln Rose/Van Chancellor
Play-by-Play/Analysis (Q107.7/TuneIn) | Rob Meyers
THE OPENING TIP
• The scenario for the SFA men's basketball team heading into Saturday afternoon's clash with 2019 Southland Conference regular season champion Sam Houston State at William R. Johnson Coliseum is a simple one: a win means the 'Jacks are headed to Katy, Texas, as the seventh seed in the 2019 Southland Conference Tournament. A loss, however, means the 'Jacks' season is at an end.
• With those stakes on the line, the two age-old Piney Woods roundball rivals will duke it out at 4:30 p.m. in a game which will be televised nationwide on ESPN3 and the ESPN app. Lincoln Rose and Van Chancellor are set to narrate the action while Rob Meyers will also do so on the Learfield/IMG College Lumberjack Sports Network on Q107.7 FM in Nacogdoches and nationwide via the TuneIn app.
• Not only is Saturday's showdown a massive one in determining the 'Jacks' postseason hopes, it's also the final home appearance of SFA's three-man 2018-19 senior class. Shannon Bogues, Davonte Fitzgerald and Jovan Grujic will all be honored for their contributions to SFA basketball in a brief pregame ceremony.
• SFA has not missed the Southland Conference Tournament since the 2005 season and has been seeded seventh or lower in the league tournament just one time since joining the Southland. That instance came in 1994 when the 'Jacks drew the eight-seed and dropped a first-round game to top-seeded Louisiana-Monroe in Monroe, La.
LAST TIME OUT
• Shannon Bogues and Kevon Harris tied for team-high scoring honors by putting in 14 points apiece and Davonte Fitzgerald added 13 more, but the 'Jacks never led and suffered a 72-58 setback at Abilene Christian Tuesday night inside Moody Coliseum.
• Harris did manage to move up to 15th on SFA's all-time scoring charts in the showdown with the Wildcats. The junior out of Ellenwood, Ga., now has 1,282 points in his collegiate career and is 13 points away from rising to 14th in scoring in the history of the program. Only 13 SFA players have amassed 1,300 or more points in their respective careers.
• Bogues increased his SFA point total to 1,058 with his 14-point output. That puts the Killeen, Texas, product in 28th place on the 'Jacks' all-time scoring charts.
THE KE TO SUCCESS
• An SFA men's basketball player has not led the Southland Conference in scoring since Patrick Gusters did so in the 1998-99 season with an average of 20.5 points per game. That two-decade drought has the possibility to come to an end this season if junior Kevon Harris can keep up his torrid scoring pace.
• The Ellenwood, Ga., product is currently averaging a team and Southland Conference-leading 18.0 points per game. In league games, that average rises to 20.8 points per game, making Harris the only player in the 13-team league averaging 20 points per game in Southland tilts.
• Currently, Harris is one of just four NCAA Division I men's basketball players from a school in the state of Texas averaging 20 or more points per game in league play. Others on that list include Texas Southern's Jeremy Combs and the UTSA duo of Jhavian Jackson and Keaton Wallace.
SHANNON'S SCORING STREAK
• Dating back to the 'Jacks' final game of the 2017-18 season (an opening round NCAA Tournament setback to eventual Elite Eight squad Texas Tech), senior guard Shannon Bogues has put in at least 10 points in 30-straight games.
• That's tied for the longest streak of double-digit scoring games by a single player in SFA's NCAA Division I history. The only other such run came across the 1991-92 and 1992-93 seasons when Nathan Randle pumped in 10 or more points in 30 consecutive games.
• Should Bogues finished with 10 or more points in SFA's showdown with Sam Houston State Saturday afternoon, the senior out of Killeen, Texas, would pass up his tie Randle for the most consecutive games with 10 or more points in SFA's NCAA-era history.
• Bogues ranks second on the team and second in the Southland in scoring at a clip of 17.9 points per game.
HIT 'EM WITH THE ONE-TWO PUNCH
• No duo in the Southland Conference has put up more points than SFA's upperclassman tandem of Shannon Bogues and Kevon Harris.
• Harris leads the 13-team leading in scoring at a clip of 18.0 points per game while Bogues ranks second at 17.9 points per game. Harris and Bogues also lead the 13-team league in points
scored with 523 and 519 respectively. In its NCAA-era history, SFA has had two players score 500 or more points in the same season just one other time. That happened in 2007-08 when Matt Kingsley and Josh Alexander scored at least 500 each.
• Bogues and Harris join just two other programs in NCAA Division I men's basketball - Duke and CSU Northridge - who have the two two scorers from their respective conference on their squad. For Duke in the ACC, that's R.J. Barrett (23.1 ppg) and Zion Williamson (21.6 ppg) while Lamine Diane (23.8 ppg) and Terrell Gomez (19.1 ppg) do the job for the Matadors.
• Bogues and Harris also rank first and second respectively in the Southland in total minutes played and minutes played per game.
SCOUTING SAM HOUSTON STATE | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATISTICS
• For the first time since 2019, the Bearkats have clinched the Southland Conference regular season title. It's Sam Houston State's fourth regular season league title - all of which have come in the 21st century - and the Bearkats will head to the Southland Conference Tournament as the number-one seed.
• Getting the best shot possible has been key to Sam Houston State's success this season. The Bearkats lead the Southland in both assist-to-turnover ratio (1.31) and assists per game (16.6) so far in the 2018-19 season. When stacked up against the rest of NCAA Division I men's basketball, Sam Houston State ranks 17th in assists per game and 19th with 498 total assists.
• Preferring to used a balanced scoring diet, the Bearkats have sustained success this season despite not boasting a player who averaged more the 14 points per game. Cameron Delaney tops the team charts with a scoring average of 13.6 points per game while Kai Mitchll (12.0 ppg) and Josh Delaney (10.0 ppg) rank second and third respectively.
• The three-pointer is one of the main weapons the Bearkats have in their scoring arsenal. Sam Houston State ranks second in the Southland in both three-point field goal percentage (36.8) and three-point field goals per game (9.4). Cameron and Josh Delaney have been responsible for 122 of the Bearkats' 283 total three-pointers made this season.
• Now in his ninth season as the Bearkats' head coach, Jason Hooten will likely be one of the two frontrunners for the 2019 Southland Conference Coach of the Year (Abilene Christian's Joe Golding is the other possibility). For his career, however, Hooten is 4-17 (.190) against SFA and is just 1-7 (.125) when matchup up against the 'Jacks in Nacogdoches.
COMING UP NEXT
• If the 'Jacks emerge as the victors, they will head to the Leonard E. Merrell Center in Katy, Texas, as the seventh seed in the 2019 Southland Conference Tournament. SFA's opening-round game of the tournament would take place at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night against the sixth seed. A full bracket will be released on SFAJacks.com following the conclusion of Saturday's game.
-SFA-
