• Texas Southern returns home to host SWAC foe Prairie View A&M Saturday afternoon inside the H&PE Arena at 2:30 p.m.
• TSU enters the contest on a six-game winning streak as they're in sole possession of second place. TSU is off to its best SWAC start since 2020 when they opened 7-1.
• Saturday's game will be televised live on HBCUGO-TV with Charlie Neal and Tim Scarborough.
• Texas Southern fell in the finals of the 2024 SWAC Tournament last season and participated in the CIT as they fell to Tarleton State in the opening round.
• TSU returns two starters from last season and eight letterwinners as they lost seven lettermen. The Tigers added seven newcomers to its roster in the offseason as six were added via the transfer portal. The TSU men's basketball duo of Grayson Carter and Kenny Hunter were named to the 2024-25 Preseason All-SWAC Second Team. Hunter was also tabbed the league's Preseason Defensive Player of the Year.
• TSU head coach Johnny Jones is 7-7 lifetime against Prairie View A&M and PVAMU's Byron Smith, a former assistant at TSU in 2009-10.
• Since 2013, TSU is 17-9 against PVAMU and has won five of the past seven games against the Panthers. In the H&PE Arena, TSU is 10-3 against PVAMU since 2012 but PVAMU has won two of the last four games in Houston since 2021.
• Picked seventh in the SWAC Preseason poll, PVAMU had a competitive non-conference slate and won three of its first four SWAC games. However, PVAMU has dropped four straight entering Saturday's game. Nick Anderson, who hasn't played since December, leads the team with 18.9 points per game. Tanahj Pettway and Braelon Bush have picked up the scoring slack with 17.4 and 10.4 points per game, respectively.
• TSU, which is led by seventh-year head coach Johnny Jones, has won three-of-the-past four SWAC Tournament Championships and enters the 2024-25 season looking to earn its eighth NCAA Tournament bid over the past 12 years.
• 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 in 2022.
• Jones is 98-82 all-time in the month of February and 30-12 at TSU.
