Men’s Basketball Closes Out Homestand Against Oral Roberts Tuesday Night

• Texas Southern is back in action on Tuesday for the Cougar Classic as the classic features back-to-back contests against Oral Roberts and #3 Houston. TSU opens the classic at home against Oral Roberts at 7 p.m. Tuesday night.

• Texas Southern is coming off a big win over Arizona State of the Pac-12. TSU needed overtime to pull off the feat as this marks the second straight year TSU has defeated a Power 5 team and first Pac- 12 win since 2018.

• TSU will face Oral Roberts for the first time since 1993. The last match-up was also inside the H&PE Arena as current TSU VP for Intercollegiate Athletics Dr. Kevin Granger was a freshman who scored 15 points in the win. ORU leads the all-time series 5-1.

• Oral Roberts is 26-8 all-time against the current lineup of the SWAC as the only teams they haven’t faced are Alabama A&M and Grambling State.

• 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 three Summit League teams. He’s 15-9 all-time against the current lineup of Summit League teams as he’s 14-8 against Denver, 1-0 versus Oral Roberts and 0-1 against South Dakota.

• Jones is 59-48 all-time in the month of November and 7-18 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.