Men’s Basketball Returns To Action In Las Vegas Saturday, Sunday

• Texas Southern heads to Las Vegas, Nev. for the third annual Chris Paul HBCU Challenge for a two-game swing against North Carolina A&T and Howard on Saturday, Dec. 16 and Sunday, Dec. 17.

• From Nov. 16-Dec. 17, six of the seven opponents on TSU’s schedule during that span are NCAA Tournament participants. Saturday’s game ends a streak of six straight contests against NCAA Tournament opponents.

• This marks the second consecutive meeting overall between both schools as both games were associated with the Chris Paul HBCU Challenge. This marks the third consecutive contest at a neutral site between both teams as the teams also met in 2000 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn.

• Both TSU and A&T have common opponents in Virginia, Alabama State, Samford and Jackson State.

• The Tigers are coming off their third straight SWAC Tournament Championship and NCAA Opening Round appearance as they fell to Fairleigh Dickinson last season.

• After having four non-conference home games last season, TSU is back to a road-heavy non-conference schedule with nine consecutive road/neutral games to open the season. The first contest at home isn’t until Dec. 21.

• For the fourth straight season, the Texas Southern men’s basketball team was picked to finish first in the Southwestern Athletic Conference preseason poll while senior guard PJ Henry was named the 2023-24 SWAC Preseason Player of the Year.

• TSU, which is led by sixth-year head coach Johnny Jones, has won the past three SWAC Tournament Championships and enters the 2023-24 season looking to earn an unprecedented fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament bid and its eighth over the past 11 years. Only three teams have made three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in SWAC history.

• Even though TSU head coach Johnny Jones has spent 23 years as a head coach, he has only faced three CAA teams. He’s 3-2 all-time against the current lineup of CAA teams as he’s 2-1 versus Charleston, 0-1 versus North Carolina A&T State and 1-0 versus Hampton.

• TSU made its fourth consecutive postseason under Jones and third straight NCAA Tournament appearance in 2022-23.  Jones went 24-14 in his inaugural year as head coach with three Power 5 conference wins. TSU fell in the finals of the 2019 SWAC Tournament and advanced to the semifinals of the CIT in 2019. In 2019-20, the Tigers made it back to the semifinals of the SWAC Tournament after a third-place regular season finish but saw the season end abruptly due to COVID-19. TSU won the SWAC Tournament and First Four contest in 2021 and was the first SWAC team to beat a ranked opponent from the SEC in 2021 at Florida. TSU claimed another Power 5 non-conference win against Arizona State last season.

• Seven NCAA Tournament participants and a pair of home contests highlights the 2023-24 Texas Southern men’s basketball non-conference schedule.

• Jones is 59-61 all-time in the month of November and 7-31 at TSU.