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SMU Basketball takes on Tulsa as momentum builds down the stretch

On3 imageby:Billy Embody•02/23/22•

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(Matt Visinsky - On3)

SMU Basketball takes on Tulsa at 7 p.m. CT in Moody Coliseum on Wednesday with the game broadcast on ESPN+. The Mustangs are coming off a dominant 73-57 win over Memphis on Sunday and now look to keep their unblemished home record intact.

In the first matchup against Tulsa, SMU Basketball won 74-69 on the road to open American Athletic Conference play. Star point guard Kendric Davis had 26 points, his previous conference career-high before his 27 on Sunday, to pace the Mustangs.

Head coach Tim Jankovich sees this one as yet another game that SMU can’t look past. His veteran team is beginning to show him that they’re capable of handling lesser teams as Tulsa comes in 9-16 overall.

“Our guys are about to convince me that we’re not young, we’re not going to do that,” Jankovich said before going on to joke about the first matchup. “They know what’s at stake. We talked a lot about Tulsa. We beat them so bad, you know, it was like, a one possession game I think with 45 seconds to go for gosh sakes.”

Still, Jankovich sees Tulsa surging. SMU Basketball wants to stay focused on Wednesday and not what looms Sunday when the Mustangs face Houston.

“They’ve won two out of three I think. They beat Cincinnati and Cincinnati is really, really, really talented,” Jankovich said. “Just won at South Florida. Hung 80 something on Cincinnati for gosh sakes. They play a matchup zone. They’re hard to play against. That’s the only game we need to worry about, the only game we need to think about, the only game I want our guys thinking about. I don’t see it as an easy game.

“I see them as a very good team that has had a lot of bad luck.”

SMU Basketball looking to keep home record perfect

Jeriah Horne paces Tulsa this season with a 15.8 scoring average. He also pulls down a team-high 6.8 rebounds a night. Sophomore guard Griffin is next in scoring, averaging 15.4 per game. Graduate senior Darien Jackson scores at a 9.3 clip and has averaged 14.3 points per game over the past four contests. Freshman Anthony Pritchard dishes out a team-high 3.2 assists per game and has contributed more than 25 percent of the team’s total assists on the season.

SMU Basketball is 16-3 in the last 19 games, and receiving votes in the AP Top 25 and USA Today Coaches Poll. SMU is 13-0 at Moody Coliseum this season and has won 15 straight at home overall. That is tied for the eighth-longest active home win streak in NCAA D-I.

Jankovich’s team is looking to keep the home cooking going. His SMU Basketball team came out a little jittery against the Tigers, but settled in to whip the visitors.

“Early on, you could see we were a little excited to start the game,” Jankovich said after the Memphis game. “We kind of forgot what we were trying to do. Honestly, this was not what we were trying to do from the very beginning. When we settled in, we got the spacing where we wanted it, got the decisions. It was good sailing.”

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