Texas
Know Your Non-conference Opponent: Texas Southern
Everything old will be new again on Monday, November 4, as Xavier’s season will open up with Texas Southern at Cintas. The cycle begins anew, hope springs eternal, everyone’s undefeated, et c., et c. Whatever your favorite cliche for the start of the season is, pick it and pretend it’s how I decided to start this post.
Texas Southern has been a school in some form since 1927. I only mention that to point out that Texas Southern is the fourth name by which the university has been called in that time. I won’t type any of the other three here, but just know that you can find them on Wikipedia and they stand as a monument to how times have changed in the last 100 years.
The Tigers were not good last year, starting the season off by going to New Mexico to get clubbed by 37 and never really recovering from there. They ended up going 2-9 in non-conference play, with half their wins coming against some school called Biblical Studies. A 12-6 SWAC campaign culminated in a conference tournament final loss and a first-round exit in the CIT.
Veteran head coach Johnny Jones is the head man for TSU, starting his seventh season with the program, having also done stints at Memphis, North Texas, and LSU. His teams have consistently played fast on offense and flown to the glass to collect their own misses. Those have been plentiful at TSU, where he has only had a team in the top 250 of EFG% once. They don’t shoot a lot of threes or shoot them very well. It has all added up to consistently bottom-tier offenses.
His defenses have been okay but nothing special, which is what you might expect from a team that lingers in the low-majors. The EFG% against numbers have actually been solid in Jones’s time at Texas Southern, but they’ve been let down pretty much everywhere else. They put teams on the line a ton and only have a mediocre TO rate to show for it. They also haven’t defended the glass well either. They’ve had some decent defenses when it all comes together, but that hasn’t been very often.
Key departures
Leading scorer PJ Henry is out the door, taking his 14.9/2.8/2.4 with him. He was a bit of a volume guy, posting a 98.9 ORtg and EFG% of 48.3%, but he distributed the ball without turning it over and posted good steal numbers on the defensive end. His backcourt mate Jonathan Cisse is also gone. He was second-leading scorer and led the team in assists on his way to a 13.5/3.4/2.8 game line. He was much more efficient than Henry largely due to being a slightly better shooter and getting to the free throw line a ton, where he shot 83%.
Wing Deon Stroud also graduated. He averaged 7.0/3.2/1.1 per game and was third on the team in shot attempts. His efficiency numbers were really brought down by some turnover issues and the fact that he took more than half his shots from deep despite connecting on less than a third of those attempts.
Key returnees
Texas Southern returns a lot of their secondary players, which in times past has been a key to developing a decent program. On the other hand, maybe these dudes didn’t hit the portal because there isn’t a lot of demand for a single-digit scorer from a team that finished 267th in the KenPom.
Anyway, Grayson Carter is a 6’10”, 240-pound forward who averaged 7.1/4.2/1.1 last season. He was second on the team in OReb% and block rate, but he spent so much time on the perimeter that he shot more threes than free throws. I’m not talking about a Matt Bullard style weapon here either; he was 15-52 from deep on the year.
The guy who led the team in OReb% and block rate was Kenny Hunter, a 6’8”, 236-pound paint monster. He wasn’t much of a defensive rebounder and didn’t get to the line much at all, but he stayed and scored near the rim and played good defense. His 4.3 fouls per 40 minutes were a concern that really hampered his ability to stay on the court.
Guards Zytarious Mortle and Jaylen Wysinger make up for in awesome names what they lack in productivity. They’re both volume scorers, though Mortle was a little less efficient and a little more of a black hole. Both struggled to defend without fouling and neither did much in terms of rebounding or distribution. Maybe they worked on it in the offseason.
Incoming players
College basketball free agent Alex Anderson joins Texas Southern this season, marking his fourth school in four years. From South Alabama to Alabama State to Incarnate Word, he has been a consistent offensive contributor who uses a ton of possessions. He has posted good assist rates but high turnover numbers, decent shooting efficiencies, and a knack for getting to the line. He’s got good size for a guard at 6’6”, 200, and uses that to get into the lane. He is 8-35 from deep on his career, which is not good.
Joining him as a newcomer in the backcourt is Jaylin Jackson-Posey, who has previously only played for two other schools (Stephen F. Austin and New Mexico State). He has been plagued by foul trouble his entire career and that has kept him from ever being able to establish an offensive rhythm. He is a career 33% shooter from behind the arc and an excellent free throw shooter, but he fouls like he gets fined for every one he doesn’t use and has struggled with turnover issues. Maybe dropping a couple of levels will let him shine.
Some JuCo guys fill out the ranks. Duane Posey is a 6’7” slashing wing from Northwestern State. He averaged 6.7/4.3/0.4 last year and only shot two threes. Oumar Koureissi is 6’11”, 220-pound big, late of Jacksonville by way of Nichols State. He grabbed 12 minutes per game at Nichols last year, giving back 4.1 and 2.6 on .418/.200/.714 shooting for the trouble. If he’s any more that depth, either something has gone wrong or he took a huge leap.
Outlook
You don’t bring in a buy game to open the season for the purposes of challenging your team right off, and that’s the role Texas Southern is filling for Xavier. The Jaguars should be scrapping around the top of the table in the SWAC, but that’s one of the worst leagues in the country. This game should pay some bills for them and give Xavier a 1-0 start to the season.
Texas
North Texas middle school closes after a norovirus outbreak
A middle school in the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD is closed Friday after an outbreak of norovirus.
According to the school district, they closed Creekview Middle School in Fort Worth on Friday to sanitize and clean the building. The district said they plan on reopening the school on Monday.
The district said children started to get sick on Tuesday with what appeared to be a stomach virus and that on Wednesday it spread to a larger group.
EMSISD said they reached out to the Tarrant County Public Health Department and that they recommended disinfecting and cleaning the school on Wednesday night and reopening the next day.
More cases continued to be reported on Thursday, so the public health department then recommended that they clean again and close the campus on Friday.
Parents were notified of the district’s decision on Thursday afternoon.
The district has not said how many students and staff were sickened in the outbreak.
Officials with Children’s Medical Center said that because norovirus is highly contagious and resistant to many common hand sanitizers, it presents a unique challenge for families.
The hospital says hand sanitizer isn’t enough and recommends thorough hand washing with soap and water. They also recommend parents keep their children home for a full 48 hours after symptoms stop to prevent further outbreaks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are approximately 2,500 norovirus outbreaks in the United States each year and that they are most common from November through April. For further tips on preventing the spread of norovirus, visit the CDC.
Texas
Trump heads to Texas, where 3 friends are battling it out in the Senate Republican primary
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump just can’t seem to choose among friends in the Texas Senate Republican primary.
So when he travels to the state on Friday for his first post- State of the Union trip, where he plans to promote his energy and economic policies, Trump will have all three candidates in the competitive race join him — just days before his party casts ballots in the primary race.
Sen. John Cornyn is battling for his fifth term and is being challenged by state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary fight that has become viciously personal. And all three men, missing the coveted endorsement from Trump, have been trying to highlight their ties to him as they ramp up their campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
For his part, Trump will be seeking to ride the message of his State of the Union address from Tuesday, where he declared a return to economic prosperity and a more secure America — two centerpiece arguments for Republicans as they campaign to keep their congressional majorities this fall.
Trump’s hesitation to endorse in the Texas Senate primary speaks to the tricky dynamics of the race.
Cornyn is unpopular with a segment of Texas’ GOP base, in part for his early dismissiveness of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign and for his role in authoring tougher restrictions on guns after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But Senate GOP leadership and allied groups see Cornyn as the stronger general election candidate, in light of a series of troubles that have shadowed Paxton.
Paxton beat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and has faced allegations of marital infidelity by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, right, is joined by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, left, during a campaign stop in Austin, Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Credit: AP/Eric Gay
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have urged Trump to endorse Cornyn. They and allied campaign groups argue that the seat would cost the party hundreds of millions more to defend with Paxton as the candidate.
“It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” Scott told Fox News on Wednesday.
Hunt, a second-term Houston-area representative, was a later entry to the race, but claims a kinship with Trump, having endorsed him early in the 2024 race. Hunt campaigned regularly for Trump and earned a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
If no candidate reaches 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 26 runoff.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, arrive before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. Credit: AP/Allison Robbert
Cornyn’s campaign and a half-dozen allied groups have poured more than $63 million into the race since last fall, chiefly trying to slow Paxton but recently attacking Hunt in an effort to keep him from making it to the runoff.
Earlier this month, Trump feinted toward weighing in on the race when he said he was taking “a serious look” at endorsing in the Texas primary. He has since reaffirmed his neutrality.
Still, you wouldn’t know it from watching TV in Texas. Cornyn has been airing ads since last year touting his support for Trump’s agenda, even though his relationship with the president has been cool at times. Paxton and Hunt both have ads airing now featuring them standing with Trump.
“I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” Trump said earlier this month.
The GOP battle comes as Democrats have a contested primary of their own in Texas between state Rep. James Talarico, a self-described policy wonk who regularly quotes the Bible, and progressive favorite U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Trump hasn’t been shy about wading into other contested Republican primaries in the state. Parts of Corpus Christi fall within Texas’ 34th congressional district, where former Rep. Mayra Flores is fighting to reclaim her seat against the Trump-endorsed Eric Flores. (The two are not related.) The winner of the primary will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, long a target of the GOP, whose district was redrawn to make it easier for a Republican to win.
Eric Flores will be at the Trump event at the Port of Corpus Christi, which technically is located in a neighboring district.
Elsewhere in the state, the president has also endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is fighting calls from his own party to resign from Congress after reports of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Gonzales is refusing to step down and has said that there will be “opportunities for all of the details and facts to come out” and that the stories about the situation do not represent “all the facts.”
Gonzales is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who Gonzales defeated by fewer than 400 votes in their 2024 runoff. The White House did not return a request for comment on Thursday on whether Trump stands by his endorsement of Gonzales.
Texas
Man sentenced to 15 years in Texas crash that killed founding member of The Chicks
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after admitting his reckless driving caused a head-on collision in rural West Texas that killed Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country music group now known as The Chicks, prosecutors said.
Domenick Chavez, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Dec. 22, 2023, crash in Hudspeth County, according to a news release Tuesday from El Paso County District James Montoya, who also oversees nearby Hudspeth County.
The news release said Chavez was driving a truck westbound when he tried to pass four vehicles on a two-way undivided highway and collided head-on with Lynch’s eastbound truck. Lynch, 65, of Dell City, was trapped in her vehicle and died. Prosecutors said Chavez was traveling between 106 mph and 114 mph.
Prosecutors said alcohol wasn’t a factor in the crash but that Chavez was driving on a suspended license, which had been revoked due to his failure to comply with DWI-related surcharges and penalties from convictions in 2014 and 2017.
Lynch, along with Robin Lynn Macy and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, formed The Dixie Chicks in the late 1980s. Lynch and Macy eventually left the band and Natalie Maines joined the sisters. The trio hit commercial fame with their breakthrough album “Wide Open Spaces” in 1998 and have won 13 Grammys. In 2020, the band changed its name to The Chicks.
In a social media post after Lynch’s death, The Chicks said Lynch had “infectious energy and humor” and was “instrumental” in the band’s early success.
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