MAGNOLIA, Ark. – The 2019-20 NCAA Division II Basketball season is underway and on Friday evening in a 7 p.m. tipoff from Cedar Valley College in Lancaster, Texas, the Southern Arkansas Mulerider Men's Basketball team will meet Rogers State as part of the Great American Conference/Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Challenge. The following afternoon, the Muleriders will face Newman at 1 p.m. from Cedar Valley College. Joining the three squads in the DFW area will be the GAC's Henderson State. Live stat links for all four games as well as more information on each team can be found at the tournament page on www.MuleriderAthletics.com.
 

---

 
Both the Hillcats and Jets are coming off 20-win campaigns and appearances in the Heartland Conference Tournament; a now-defunct league which led the programs to join the highly-competitive MIAA in 2019-20. Henderson State won 19 games a season ago and made a semifinal appearance in the GAC Tournament after knocking off the Muleriders 74-62 in the opening round in Bartlesville. As for Southern Arkansas, the Muleriders enter this season with high expectations after setting a Division II program record for wins in a season with 19, while making their eighth-consecutive trip to the GAC Tournament; the lone team to appear in the postseason every year since the league's inception in 2011.
 
It marks the fifth-straight year that the Muleriders will open up in Lancaster. In their previous four trips to the Lone Star State, Southern Arkansas is 4-4 with wins over Minot State (2015, 2016), Minnesota State-Moorhead (2017), and UMary (2018); all members of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference
 
Southern Arkansas will look to get off to a quick start to the 2019-20 season after having dropped their previous three season openers.
 
AS SHARPE AS EVER
 
Coming off their best season as a Division II program, high expectations abound for the Southern Arkansas Men's Basketball team in 2019-20 under eighth-year head coach Andy Sharpe. In his previous seven seasons, the Muleriders have tallied a 101-98 record and have appeared in the conference tournament every year. Since the 2014-15 campaign, SAU has averaged just under 16 wins a season, including four years with 15 or more wins. The Muleriders' 14 GAC wins last season are a program record and it marked just the second time that SAU won more than a dozen league games in GAC play.
 
In addition to the aforementioned DII program wins record, Sharpe's bunch ranked 11^th in the country last season in field goal percentage defense at 40.2% and 12^th in three-point field goal percentage at 31.4%. Both of those marks led the Great American Conference. Additionally, SAU ranked 19^th in Division II in rebound margin at 6.2; also the standard in the GAC. Much of the same is expected in 2019-20.
 
TWICE AS NICE AND BACK AGAIN
 
Junior forward and reigning All-GAC First Team selection DeVante Brooks returns for his third season donning the Blue & Gold and joining him on the court for his second season will be his younger brother Jalen Brooks who was named the league's Freshman of the Year as a rookie. DeVante led the team in scoring last season at 11.4 points per game, in rebounding with 7.9 boards per game; the second-most in the GAC in 2018-19, in blocked shots per game at 1.2 and in field goal percentage at 52.2%. Jalen's 5.7 rebounds per game ranked 10^th in the GAC as did his 0.7 blocked shots per game.
 
JUNIOR LADEN
 
Five returners from last year's historic campaign are juniors. Joining the elder Brooks brother is guard Trey Davis, point guard Aaron Lucas, shooting guard Gabe Gilliam and forward Charlie Thomas. Thomas started 22 games last season for the Muleriders and averaged 13.4 minutes per game. The Vilonia, Arkansas, native shot 59.4% from the floor with 4.3 points and 3.2 rebounds per game.
 
Lucas started five games, but saw action in all 29 and averaged the fourth-most minutes on the team at 22.0 per game. He finished with a 9.2 scoring average on 41.8% shooting and he averaged 2.4 assists and 1.1 steals per game.
 
Like Lucas, Gilliam saw meaningful time a season ago as he averaged 18.9 minutes in 27 games played. A sharpshooter in every sense of the word, Gilliam is the top returning three-point shooter for the Muleriders this season. Last year, he shot 33.6% from deep and scored in double figures eight times. Davis played in 24 games as a sophomore and contributed valuable minutes defensively.
 
NEW FACES | https://muleriderathletics.com/news/2019/8/29/sharpe-announces-2019-20-signing-class.aspx?path=mbball
 
Eight new faces joined the Mulerider Men's Basketball in August. Seven true freshmen include two Arkansans in Logan Bradley (Booneville) and Connor Harvey (Mena), two Louisianans in Jessie Davis, Jr. and Deven Melancon from Shreveport, two Texans in Dodge Brown (Commerce) and Josh Ukpe (Bonham), and Zak-Blue Shagouire with the longest commute of 4,500 miles from East London, England.  Dru Smith of state Fair Community College joins the program as the only transfer after two successful years as a Roadrunner.
 
Joining the fold after a redshirting their first season in Magnolia are point guard Ray Fresh, shooting guard Kam Roelke, and swingman Trent Ivy.
 
SOLID SLATE | Full Schedule: https://muleriderathletics.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule
 
In addition to playing a pair of 20-game winners from a season ago in back-to-back nights, the Muleriders' nonconference slate is solid in 2019-20. The home opener is slated for Wednesday, November 13 at 7 p.m. from inside the W.T. Watson Center where the Muleriders welcome in Gulf South Conference member Union. The Bulldogs won 16 games in 2018-19 and suffered an 83-74 home defeat to the Muleriders last November. Southern Arkansas is 23-5 in the past two seasons inside the W.T. Watson Center, which includes a 14-game win streak during that time.
 
On November 21, the Muleriders open Great American Conference play on the road at Henderson State in a 7:30 p.m. tip-off. It will be the first of four in-state pre-New Year league matchups for Southern Arkansas with their conference home opener taking place two days later on Saturday, November 23 at 3 p.m. against Harding.
 
The nonconference schedule thickens like a post-Turkey Day gravy on Friday, November 29 and Saturday, November 30 as the Muleriders play a pair of games in the Drury Thanksgiving Classic. SAU will play host Drury at 3:15 p.m. on Friday and matchup with Missouri S&T on Saturday in a 1 p.m. start time.
 
Drury made an appearance in the Midwest Regional last year and the team's 21 wins a season ago pushes the combined 2018-19 win total of SAU's first four nonconference opponents this season to 77.
 
The Muleriders close out the 2019 portion of their schedule in Magnolia on Saturday, December 21 in a 3 p.m. tip-off with Williams Baptist University. GAC play resumes on Thursday, January 2 as the Muleriders welcome in Northwestern Oklahoma State for the first of 18 remaining league games to close out the regular season; nine of which will be played at home.
 
SCOUTING ROGERS STATE
 
Picked preseason No. 9 in their first season as a member of the uber-competitive MIAA, Rogers State returns three starters and five letterwinners from last year's team. Most notable is junior combo Brewster Peacock who as a sophomore shot over 40% from three-point range, 84% from the charity stripe and was responsible for per-game averages of 10.6 points and 4.1 rebounds.
 
Additionally, Rogers State admission into the MIAA has capped off an impressive rise through multiple levels of collegiate basketball since the program began at the NAIA level in 2006.
 
The Hillcats enter regular season play in Lancaster after having already taken the court together last week. RSU dropped an exhibition contest to Oklahoma State 75-63 in Stillwater.

SCOUTING NEWMAN
 
Like their former Heartland Conference foe, Newman looks to take flight in arguably the toughest DII Basketball conference in the country. Tabbed 11^th in the preseason poll, the Jets will rely on three starters from last year's squad and return seven letterwinners all together.
 
Most notable among the returners are a pair of seniors in forward Marshawn Blackmon and combo Juwan Davenport. Blackmon averaged 14.9 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game last season, while Davenport scored at a clip of 12.2 points and added 3.8 rebounds per game.