SMU will begin a new chapter in its rebuilding effort when it hosts Tarleton State on Monday night in Dallas in the teams’ season-opening game.
It will be the Mustangs’ first contest with Andy Enfield as head coach and for SMU as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Eight transfers will join the Mustangs as they look to build on a first-round loss in the NIT that ended the 2023-24 season.
The Mustangs finished 20-13 overall and 11-7 in American Athletic Conference play last season. SMU hired former Southern California coach Enfield in the offseason to employ his up-tempo attack and has been picked to finish 13th in the 18-team ACC preseason media poll.
SMU will be buoyed by returning guard Chuck Harris, who averaged 13.4 points and 3.4 assists per game last season. The Mustangs also worked the transfer portal for guard Kevin “Boopie” Miller from Wake Forest and forward Matt Cross from Massachusetts.
“We have a very experienced team, and they came here to try to win a championship, and they know they have to do that together,” Enfield said. “We’re so impressed as a coaching staff with their attitude, their unselfish spirit.”
Tarleton State will begin its fifth season as member of the Western Athletic Conference and under the tutelage of former Texas A&M and Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie. The Texans finished 25-10 last season, with the 25 wins the most in the team’s Division I history.
Tarleton State’s 16-4 league record — the team fell in the WAC tournament semifinals — earned the Texans a berth in the postseason College Invitational Tournament, where they produced two victories.
“We had a fantastic recruiting year, and I believe that we have more talent on this team than we ever have at Tarleton,” Gillispie said last week.
Senior guard Freddy Hicks returns to the team after competing last season at Arkansas State. Hicks played his first three years at Tarleton, is just 66 points from 1,000 for his career there and heads the Texans’ all-time lists in several statistical categories. He was named to the all-WAC preseason team; Tarleton is sixth in the league’s preseason poll.
“Everyone on our team is playing for each other,” Hicks said. “I just love going out there and competing with these guys because we are all trying to accomplish one goal.”
–Field Level Media
