• Texas Southern opens the 2024-25 season on the road at Xavier University Monday night in Cincinnati, Ohio at 6:30 p.m.
• This marks the second time both teams will meet on the hardwood. The last time both teams met was in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament in Nashville, Tenn. TSU will face Sean Miller for the third time as the prior two times he served as head coach at Arizona.
• 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.
•Head coach Johnny Jones has never faced Xavier as a head coach nor had a head-to-head match-up against Sean Miller.
• This marks the second consecutive year TSU will face a BIG EAST opponent. TSU faced Creighton last year as it marked the first time since 2018 TSU met a team from the BIG EAST.
• Xavier was picked third in the BIG EAST Conference preseason poll. Graduate students Dayvion McKnight and Zach Freemantle earned preseason league second team honors while Ryan Conwell was named third team. Xavier returns two starters from last season as they advanced to the finals of the NIT.
• 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 59-60 all-time in the month of November and 7-30 at TSU.
