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.