SAN ANTONIO — UTSA will close non-conference play when it hosts East Central at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Convocation Center in the team's final tune-up before the start of Conference USA play.
The Roadrunners (4-8) are coming off a 66-60 victory against Utah Valley on Dec. 21 in which they held a high-powered Wolverines offense to season lows in points and shooting percentage (31.7 percent). Giovanni De Nicolao led five players in double figures with a career-high 14 points, while Byron Frohnen notched his second double-double of the campaign with 10 points and a career-best 12 rebounds.
For his efforts against Utah Valley, Frohnen picked up his second Conference USA Freshman of the Week honor and he is the only player to receive the nod more than once this season.
A win over the Tigers (6-4) would push the Roadrunners' home winning streak to six games and the team would already equal its win total from the 2015-16 season.
East Central, a Division II school located in Ada, Okla., will bring a six-game winning streak with it to the Alamo City. The Tigers are led by 6-foot-4 guard Braxton Reeves, who is averaging 22.2 points per game and shooting 43.1 percent from the floor. Reeves was named USBWA National Player of the Week after he averaged 42.5 points in wins against Texas A&M-Commerce and Cameron. Against Cameron, he scored a GAC-record 45 points to erase a second-half deficit and rally for the win. The Tigers are averaging 77.9 ppg and are shooting nearly 40-percent behind the arc.
UTSA leads the all-time series against the Tigers, 3-0. The Roadrunners set program standards for points (136) and margin of victory (68) in a 136-68 win over the Tigers in the first-ever meeting between the teams back on Nov. 22, 2008. Last season, UTSA claimed a 75-61 win in San Antonio.
Thursday's game can be heard live in the San Antonio area on Ticket 760 AM beginning with the pregame show at 6:30 p.m. Andy Everett (play-by-play) and Jim Goodman (analyst) will have the call.
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