After suffering its first loss of the season at Butler on Friday, SMU returns to Dallas aiming to keep its perfect home record intact when it hosts Prairie View A&M on Monday.
The Mustangs (3-1), who opened the season with three convincing home victories, were held to season lows in points, field goal percentage (40.0 percent) and assists (nine) in their 81-70 loss at the Bulldogs. SMU led 50-48 with under 13 minutes remaining before its advantage slipped away.
“We went from up two (points) to I think down six pretty quickly,” Mustangs coach Andy Enfield said. “Then we were playing uphill for the rest of the game.”
Chuck Harris led SMU with 21 points off the bench against Butler to boost his scoring average to 15.3 points per game. He only trails Boopie Miller, a prolific guard who averages 19.8 points and 6.8 assists per game for the Mustangs. Miller had 17 points and four assists on Friday.
“We just want Boopie to play good offense and good defense,” Enfield said after SMU’s win over UNC-Greensboro last Monday. “How many points he scores, we don’t care. He needs to lead our team.”
Prairie View A&M (1-2) is still seeking its first win over a Division I opponent this season. The Panthers opened with a 111-90 victory over the College of Biblical Studies before falling 92-59 at DePaul and 84-81 at Incarnate Word.
Prairie View A&M especially struggled on the boards in its two losses, getting outrebounded by 21 and 15 against the Blue Demons and Cardinals, respectively.
Nick Anderson enters as the Panthers’ top scorer, averaging 21.0 points per game. The guard also leads the team with 5.3 rebounds per game. He paired 16 points with four boards in last Tuesday’s loss at Incarnate Word.
Entering the season, head coach Prairie View A&M Bryon Smith praised his team’s toughness, and the Panthers will look to display that as they play the third of 12 consecutive road games on Monday.
“We have a tough team,” Smith said at the Southwestern Athletic Conference preseason media days. “They really compete hard. I don’t think we had that last year, which was a bit of a problem for us. Toughness trumps talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
