Men's Basketball | 1/29/2017 6:01:00 PM
SAN MARCOS, Texas – Coming off a big victory at Coastal Carolina on Saturday, the Texas State men's basketball team closes out its trip to the Carolinas on Monday at 6 p.m. CT against Appalachian State in the Holmes Center.
The Bobcats are 12-8 on the season and in fifth place in the Sun Belt Conference with a 5-3 mark, the best start in program history since joining the conference. The Mountaineers are 6-13 overall, 1-7 in conference play and have lost four straight.
Live stats, audio and video will be available for the game with Bill Culhane calling the game on either 1300 The Zone (1300 AM) or 103.1 FM out of Austin and on KTSW 89.9 FM out of San Marcos. The game will also be streamed on ESPN3 with Adam Witten and Ryan Goodson providing the play-by-play and analyst, respectively.
Last Time Out
Texas State accomplished a first since joining the SBC on Sunday, winning consecutive road games. The Bobcats also won their second game under
Danny Kaspar in which the team scored less than 60 points.
Kavin Gilder-Tilbury netted a team-high 18 points to give him 1,138 in his career, tied for the 11 most in program history with Rudy Davalos (1957-60). The senior also grabbed seven rebounds and tied his career-high with four steals.
Both
Ojai Black and NIjal Pearson contributed nine points each. Pearson grabbed seven rebounds while Black connected on all four of his shot attempts.
In a homecoming of sorts for
Immanuel King, the Rocky Mount, North Carolina native grabbed a team best eight rebounds and added seven points.
Scouting Appalachian State
Appalachian State is coming off an 83-67 loss on Saturday to UTA. The loss dropped the Mountaineers to 5-3 at home for the season and 1-2 in SBC action. Their lone conference victory was on Jan. 9 against Arkansas State by the score of 70-57.
Ronshad Shabazz is the lone player averaging double-digits in points for the team at 17.8 per game, the third highest in the league. He is coming off a 33-point game against the Mavericks that saw him score 21 in the first half. The sophomore is shooting 42.0 percent from the field, 37.9 percent on three-pointers and 71.6 percent at the free throw line. Shabazz also leads the team in made three-pointers (50).
Griffin Kinney is second on the squad in blocks (13), field goal percentage (51.3), scoring (9.1) and rebounding (5.8). Both Patrick Good and Kelvin Robinson are averaging 8.0 points per game. Good has made 42 of his 50 made field goals from beyond the arc with a team-high 42.9 three-point percentage. Robinson has missed the past four games after undergoing minor knee surgery.
Tyrell Johnson has blocked a team best 22 shots and is averaging 7.7 ppg with a 42.4 field goal percentage. Leading the team at the free throw line is Emarius Logan with an 84.1 percentage. Isaac Johnson has come off the bench each game but leads the team with 6.2 rebounds per game.
All-Time Series
The all-time series is tied 3-3 after the Bobcats took the first meeting 67-58 on Dec. 31, 2016 in Strahan Coliseum. That game saw Gilder-Tilbury crack the 1,000 career point barrier with his first basket of the game. When playing in Boone, North Carolina, Texas State is 0-2 after suffering a 20-point loss last season and fell by three during the 2014-15 season.
The 2017 Sun Belt Conference Men's and Women's Basketball Championships are scheduled for a week of March Madness in the Big Easy. New Orleans will once again be home to the two championships that will take place at Lakefront Arena from March 7-12 and ticket books can now be purchased from your school's ticket office. For more information, visit the Sun Belt Conference's championship central websites - Men's Championship – Women's Championship – and be sure to follow the #FunBelt on social media - @SunBelt.
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.
