Men's Basketball | 12/19/2016 5:07:00 PM
SAN MARCOS, Texas – The Texas State men's basketball team closes out the home non-conference portion of its schedule Tuesday night when the team hosts Howard Payne at 7 p.m. in Strahan Coliseum.
Heading into the contest, the Bobcats are 5-5 on the season while the Yellow Jackets sport a 5-4 record.
Last Time Out
Four Texas State players scored in double-figures in a 15-point setback at Tulsa.
Bobby Conley led the way with a career-high tying 19 points as he went 7-for-11 from the field and made all three of the squad's three-pointers. Also tying a career-high in points with 14 was
Ojai Black. The Killeen, Texas native also set a new career best with a game-high five steals.
Nijal Pearson added 12 points with 10 coming in the first half after making all five of his shot attempts.
Kavin Gilder-Tilbury was held to just 10 points after getting into early foul trouble. The senior has scored in double-digits in nine of the team's games this season. He is also 27 points shy of cracking the 1,000-point barrier in his career.
The Bobcats had their best game at the free throw line this season against the Golden Hurricane going 8-for-10 (80.0%). Black made all six of his attempts and Conley nailed both of his shots at the charity stripe.
Scouting Howard Payne
Howard Payne competes at the NCAA Division III level and is a member of the American Southwest Conference. The Yellow Jackets are coming off two home victories this past weekend and winners of four of their last five games overall. When playing on the road, they are 0-3 with a loss against Abilene Christian.
Rickey Guillory leads the team in scoring (16.8), assists (3.0), blocks (20) and steals (20). The junior has made 49.2 percent of his shots and 39.1 percent of his three-point attempts. Also putting up double-digits in points is Khyce Randall at 14.8 points per game. He paces the team in three-point field goal percentage (39.6) and made three-pointers (19). The duo both head into the game grabbing 5.9 rebounds per game.
Leading HPU with 6.2 rpg and a 57.8 field goal percentage is J Bailey. He adds 7.0 ppg and is second on the team with 14 steals. Shad Cole contributes 9.2 ppg with a 37.1 percentage from the field and retrieves 5.2 rpg.
All-Time Series
Texas State leads the all-time meeting 60-32 and have won 12 straight. Of the 92 meetings, 59 came when both programs were members of the Lone Star Conference from 1956-84. The Bobcats sport a 31-12 record when playing the Yellow Jackets at home.
Last season, Texas State won 92-43 led by
Emani Gant's 18 points.
Courtney Julien scored a career-high 14 points that night that included a 7-for-8 performance at the free throw line. The win was the Bobcats' 12th straight over the Yellow Jackets. The last time HPU defeated Texas State was on Feb. 7, 1981 in Brownwood, Texas by the score of 82-76.
Live stats, video and audio will be available for the game. The game will be broadcast on Spectrum Sports (Ch. 323) to subscribers of Spectrum's television service with the announcers being Tom Franklin and Jeff Power. Bill Culhane will call the game on 1300 The Zone (1300 AM) out of Austin and KTSW 89.9 FM out of San Marcos.
For the latest on Texas State men's basketball, visit the official website of Texas State athletics at
www.txstatebobcats.com, follow the team on Twitter at @TxStateMBB, Instagram at @TxStateMBB and like on Facebook at /TexasStateMensBasketball.
