Men’s Basketball Starts Big Home Stretch With Pac-12 Member Arizona State Sunday Afternoon

• Texas Southern opens up its 2022-23 home schedule Sunday afternoon against Arizona State at 2 p.m. inside the H&PE Arena. The contest is part of the Pac-12/SWAC Legacy Series.

• Texas Southern plays host to its first Pac-12 opponent inside the H&PE Arena since 1993 (California). Current VP for Intercollegiate Athletics Dr. Kevin Granger was on the team then as Cal featured former NBA star Jason Kidd. 

• TSU’s next stretch, which has them playing five games over the next seven days, starts with a rare two-game preseason homestand as they’ll host Arizona State on Sunday and Oral Roberts on Tuesday followed by a quick trek to Houston on Wednesday. The trek continues at Auburn on Friday and ends at Samford on Sunday in Birmingham, Ala.

• TSU will face ASU for the first time since back-to-back meetings in 2018 and 2019.

• Arizona State is 14-0 all-time against the SWAC as the only teams they haven’t faced are Alabama A&M, Alcorn State and Southern.

• This marks the fifth year for TSU head coach Johnny Jones. TSU made its third consecutive postseason under Jones and second straight NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021-22.  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 will face off against teams from nine Division I conferences in 2022-23. TSU squares off against teams from the WCC, Big 12 (2), Pac-12, Summit, SoCon, American, SEC, Big South and CAA. TSU also hosts a pair of NAIA institutions in December.

• For the first time since 2002, TSU will spend a considerable amount of time at home during non-conference play with four home games during its 2022-23 non-conference schedule.

• Even though TSU head coach Johnny Jones has spent 22 years as a head coach, he has only faced six Pac-12 teams as head coach and is 1-9 all-time. He’s 1-2 against Oregon, 0-3 versus Arizona State, 0-1 versus Colorado, 0-1 versus USC,  0-1 versus Washington and 0-1 versus Washington State.

• Jones is 58-48 all-time in the month of November and 6-18 at TSU.

• For the third straight season, the Texas Southern men’s basketball team was picked to finish first in the Southwestern Athletic Conference while the duo of Karl Nicholas and John Walker III both earned preseason honors. Nicholas was tabbed the SWAC’s Preseason Defensive Player of the Year.