KINGSVILLE, Texas – For the first time in the 2021-22 season, the Texas A&M-Kingsville men's basketball team will get to put the ball on the floor at home and their first two opponents at the Steinke Physical Education Center in Kingsville, Texas will be the Dallas Christian Crusaders, who they'll take on on Friday at 7 p.m., and the Northwest Nazarene Nighthawks, who are scheduled for a 5 p.m. bout against the Javelinas on Saturday.
This weekend also gives coach Johnny Estelle the opportunity to achieve another milestone in his career as Javelina head coach. Estelle sits just one win away from becoming the fifth coach in program history to achieve 100 wins, joining a list that includes Bill Carter, Jerry Hopkins, Ted Carley and Pete Peterson. Two wins would move him past Carter into fourth-place on program's all-time wins list.
The player with the sharpest shooting touch for the Hogs through two games has been freshman Derek Luna (Palmview, Texas), who currently leads the LSC and is eighth in the country with an average of 27.5 points per game. In TAMUK's season-opener against South Dakota Mines, Luna tied the program record for made threes in a game by knocking down nine en route to a 27-point night. Luna then reset his career-high the next day by tallying 28 points in a win over Chadron State. He is also tied for first in Division II with an average of six-and-a-half made threes per game.
Javelina fans were first introduced to sophomore C.J. Smith (Mansfield, Texas) during TAMUK's game against Texas A&M, but Smith continued to make himself known to Javelina Nation by scoring 35 points in his team's first two regular season games, including 22 in the season opener. Smith also passed out 11 assists and he's currently tied for fourth in the conference in assists per game.
The Crusaders have yet play an official game in 2021-22, having participated in six exhibitions, but from the 2019-20 campaign to last year, they improved from 6-20 to 10-8 and they own an offense that topped the century mark four times a season ago. They had four players average better than 10 points per game in 2020-21, including junior Tylir Hobson, who also averaged better than seven rebounds per contest.
The Nighthawks are fresh off a season that saw them make a run all the way to the West Regional Final in their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. Along the way, they handed the nation's No. 1 team, Colorado Mesa, a 74-54 upset in the second round.
While NNU had to say goodbye to last year's leading scorer Ezekiel Alley, who transferred to Portland State, the Nighthawks retained the services of second-leading scorer George Reidy and leading rebounder James Nelson.
When TAMUK and NNU locked horns in November of 2019, Reidy played 37 minutes and rang up 20 points in an 82-68 win in Idaho. He finished that season averaging 10.7 points per game, then pushed that number up to 12.4 in 2020-21. One of his best performances of the year came in the Nighthawks upset of CMU, when he posted 17 points and shot 5-of-11 from the field in his teams' 20-point victory.
Fans can keep up with Javelina men's basketball throughout the season by following @JavelinaMBB on Twitter and Instagram, liking Texas A&M University-Kingsville Men's Basketball on Facebook, subscribing to the Javelina Athletics YouTube channel and visiting Javelinaathletics.com. Watch your Javelinas live today on the Javelina Sports Network sponsored by Mendoza's Pharmacy.
Watch your Javelinas live today on the Javelina Sports Network sponsored by Mendoza's Pharmacy. Get the Official Javelina Athletics Mobile App today! Download on the App Store or Get It on Google Play to keep up with all the news, scores and updates of your favorite Javelinas
