The men’s basketball team will be playing in its final home game of the regular season Wednesday evening when it takes on Incarnate Word in a rematch of earlier this season.
The men are still fighting to get to .500 on the season, and winning on Wednesday will put the team in a position to where winning their final regular season game Saturday will solidify a spot.
The Wildcats are coming off of a big road win against Sam Houston State in which they outscored the Bearkats 84-81.
Sophomore guards Jaylen Franklin and Jaren Lewis, and sophomore forward Hayden Farquhar led the way with 14 points a piece.
The men are tied for eighth in the conference with a 7-9 Southland record and a 13-14 overall record.
In the first match up, the Wildcats fell short in San Antonio 82-79 and were just a missed three-pointer at the buzzer away from sending the game into overtime.
Redshirt freshman center Jalone Friday led his team in scoring that game with 26 points. The men will now look to avenge the loss in Moody Wednesday evening, but Friday could play limited minutes in working back from an ankle injury.
Junior guard Isaiah Tripp talked about the importance of winning this game.
“Definitely a big home game tomorrow and to be honest our last two games are very important because as I said before, if we win out, we are going to post season play which will be a big step in the right direction for this program.” Tripp said.
Coming into the game, Friday leads the team in scoring with 13.7 points per game and Lewis sits just behind him at13.6.
Lewis leads the team in rebounding with 6.5 per game while Franklin leads in assists with 4.3 per game and is in seventh in the conference.
The men will be up against two good players in junior guard Jalin Hart and sophomore forward Simi Socks.
Both Hart and Socks are in the top ten of the Southland Conference in scoring as Hart is fifth with 16.1 per game and Socks is sixth with 15.7 per game.
Hart has also proven to be a good play maker as he sits at fourth in the conference with 4.7 assists per game.
Tripp talked about what the team focus will be in order to take down UIW.
“We are just going to focus on locking in to player personnel regarding defensive schemes,” Tripp said. “We are going to focus on winning the rebounding margin and focus on playing great as a team on the offensive end.”
If the men get to 15 wins they will become eligible to play in the CIT or CBI tournament.
