• Texas Southern heads to College Station, Texas for a match-up at Texas A&M on Thursday night.
• TSU dropped its season opener to Gonzaga on Monday night. TSU will face the Aggies for the first time since 2019.
• Texas Southern fell in the first round of the 2025 SWAC Tournament to Alabama State.
• TSU returns two starters from last season and 10 letterwinners as they lost five lettermen. The Tigers added seven newcomers to its roster in the offseason as five were added via the transfer portal. Senior guard Zaire Hayes was named to the 2025-26 Preseason All-SWAC basketball team after a career junior campaign which saw him finish second on the team with 10.3 points per game while finishing second on the team with 47 three-pointers made. He also shot 46 percent from the field and 84 percent from the free throw line.
• Head coach Johnny Jones is 4-9 all time against Texas A&M as he was 3-8 at LSU and 1-1 at TSU. Against Texas A&M's Bucky McMillan, Jones is 0-3 as McMillan faced off against Jones at Samford the past three seasons. Jones is 47-70 all-time against the current group of teams from the SEC.
• Texas A&M is 51-3 all-time against the SWAC as the only team they haven't faced is Alabama State. Southern has two wins against Texas A&M while TSU has one win.
• Texas A&M is under the direction of new head coach Bucky McMillan. McMillan comes to Texas A&M from Samford after an impressive tenure which saw him win three SoCon Championships. Texas A&M defeated Northwestern State in its season opener and has a retooled roster with 14 newcomers and one letterwinner returning.
• TSU, which is led by eighth-year head coach Johnny Jones, enters the 2025-26 season looking to earn its eighth NCAA Tournament bid over the past 13 years. TSU finished fourth in the SWAC last season and picked to finish fifth this year.
• TSU made its fifth consecutive postseason under Jones in 2024 and participated in three straight NCAA Tournaments from 2021-23. Head coach Johnny 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 62-66 all-time in the month of November and 9-36 at TSU.
