STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Tarleton State Men's Basketball will host a pair of games this week starting with Southern Utah on Thursday night at 7 p.m. in Wisdom Gym.
 
Thursday will be "States Up! Night" with early-arriving fans receive a free "States Up" foam finger. Also for fan enjoyment, the world-renowned act, Rolla Bolla will provide a special halftime performance. The family trio will take a variety of balancing acts and tricks to mesmerize family. The group also features their six-year old, Alex, who is deemed the youngest halftime performer in America.
 
The game will be streamed on ESPN+ with Byron Anderson and Jeremey Bryant. Kyle Crews will have the radio call on 90.5 KTRL. Live Stats will be provided by StatBroadcast and can be found on TarletonSports.com. For highlights and live score updates follow @tarletonmbb on Twitter and Instagram.
 
Last week, the Texans enjoyed a perfect 2-0 week, picking up just the second road WAC win in the last 20 contests among all WAC schools the past two weeks. Last Thursday the Texans held off Abilene Christian, 79-71. Jakorie Smith was a standout performing posting 25 points and five boards. He also connected on four of eight from deep.
 
On Saturday, Tarleton overcame a 17-point deficit in the final 10 minutes to stun UTRGV, 77-73 to complete the season sweep of the Vaqueros. After trailing 40-26, the Texans used a 51-point second half to overtake the home team. Tarleton closed the game on a 33-12 run to earn its fifth WAC victory of the season. Lue Williams shined scoring a game-best 28 and adding six boards. He also set new school records for mast made field goal attempts in a WAC game and tied for the most by a Texan in the D1 era.
 
The Purple and White are 5-2 in the WAC play, and 12-6 overall. The Texans remain second in the WAC Resume Seeding, meaning that if the season ended today, Tarleton would own the second overall seed in the conference tournament in Vegas. The WAC has adopted the resume system to determine seeding, but based on conference winning percentage, the Texans are tied for second with Stephen F. Austin who is also 5-2.
 
The Texans are in their fourth year of reclassification into NCAA Division I. The Texans' played its 100th game as a Division I institution last Thursday at California Baptist. Men's basketball joins baseball, softball and volleyball as the fourth program to reach the century mark in total games played. Tarleton is the sixth men's basketball reclassifying program since 2010 to win at least 50 games in its first 100. The Texans have the eighth-best winning percentage of all 31 reclassifying programs since 2010. Tarleton owns the third highest winning percentage among the 11 reclassifying schools this season.
 
KiAndre Gaddy leads the league in offensive rebounds (73). The senior would rank sixth in the nation with 4.06 offensive boards per game. Gaddy ranks in the top seven in five different statistical categories in the conference. Gaddy was named the WAC Player of the Week on Jan. 2 for the final week of 2023.
 
Joseph Jones will be standing on the Texan sideline for the thirteenth time this season. Jones has been filling in for coach Billy Gillispie since Nov. 19 who has not been with the team due to medial circumstances. Jones was named the acting head coach on Dec. 19. He holds an 8-4 record during his time on the sidelines.
 
Southern Utah won its first conference game last week in a split 1-1 week. The Thunderbirds opened the week with a 75-65 victory at home against Utah Tech. SUU closed the week with a 83-76 defeat at California Baptist. Dominque Ford led the team in scoring posting 28 and 23 in the pair of games last week. He is averaging 17.1 points per game in conference play. Head Coach Rob Jeter is in his first season with Southern Utah and his fifth as a Division I head coach. He made other stops at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Western Illinois.
 
The Thunderbirds met the Texans for the first time last season, splitting the pair. SUU was victorious at home and dropped to the Texans in its only matchup in Stephenville last January, 68-65.
 
Tarleton will close out the weekend on Saturday hosting Utah Tech. Saturday will be the annual "White Out" with the first-arriving fans receiving a free "White Out Wisdom" t-shirt. Tip is slated for 4 p.m. at Wisdom Gym.