The Texas A&M University-Commerce men’s basketball team begins the 2009-10 season in Austin at the St. Edward’s University Shootout tournament this weekend. The first of the Lions’ two games in the tournament is on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. against hosts St. Edward’s.
“We’re just wanting to continue to grow,” assistant coach Stephen Pearce said. “We’ve seen a continual rise in our production from our players. We’ve just got to keep that up, keep getting better and better. Once conference rolls around, that’s when we want to play our best basketball.”
A&M-Commerce has played three exhibition games leading up to the new season. After playing Paris Junior College, they traveled to College Station where they lost to Texas A&M University. The Lions then won their third exhibition match against Dallas Baptist University 103-95 on Monday, Nov. 9.
Assistant coach Jason Burton said the game against Texas A&M played a major role in preparing the team for the upcoming season.
“A&M plays a lot like we play, but they’re faster and bigger,” Burton said. “So we got to see the tempo that we want to play, the style that we want to play and a higher execution level.”
Burton also said the match was important in improving the team’s weak points. Studying film from the exhibition games has sharpened the skills of the team, both individually and collectively.
“We were winning the game the first fifteen minutes of the first half,” Burton said. “Playing that game, watching film, being able to clean things up and then going to play Dallas Baptist, which is also an up-tempo team, I think we’ll be ready for this weekend.”
The Lions play their final match of the St. Edward’s Shootout against Trinity University on Monday at 4:30 p.m.