NEW ORLEANS – The University of New Orleans men's basketball team will tipoff the 2015-16 season on Saturday, Nov. 14, when the Privateers travel to Ohio to take on Bowling Green at 1 p.m. at the Stroh Center. The game will broadcast live nationally on ESPN3 and live audio of the contest is available on UNOPrivateers.com.
The contest against the Falcons is the first of a two-game road swing to open the season as UNO will play at Duquesne on Monday at 6 p.m. The Privateers enter the weekend with high hopes and a boatload of talent as New Orleans returns four starters among eight lettermen from the 2014-15 squad.
"We've excited about the opportunity to kick the season off," head coach
Mark Slessinger said. "We want to see all the hard work these student-athletes have put in over the last six months and see how we stack up in a tough game against a Mid-American Conference team. We've got to see constant improvement, but our goal heading into this trip is to come back home with some wins. We want to come up here and play well. We want to play hard. We want to establish our identity of who we're going to be, how we're going to play and let that dictate the rest of our year."
Last season, the Privateers posted an 11-18 overall record, finished tied for 10th in the Southland Conference regular-season standings with a 6-12 league mark and posted the program's first conference tournament win in seven years with an 82-73 victory in the opening round of the SLC Championship.
As a team, the Privateers averaged 71.1 points, 35.0 rebounds, 9.6 assists, 7.4 steals and 3.5 blocks per game a year ago. UNO returns nearly all of its statistical leaders from last season, including junior guard
Christavious Gill, who paced the squad in points (356), points per game (12.3), field goals made (117), 3-point baskets (48), minutes (915) and minutes played (31.6) en route to earning honorable-mention All-SLC recognition.
Also back are senior forward
Kevin Hill, who led UNO in offensive, defensive and total rebounds with respective totals of 66, 127 and 193 while also headlining the team in rebounds per game (6.7) and free throws made (98), junior guard
Nate Frye, who had team-high totals with 76 assists, 44 steals and a .841 free throw percentage, and sophomore forward
Travin Thibodeaux, who rejected a club-best 29 shots a year ago.
New Orleans connected at a .439 clip from the field in 2014-15, hitting 704-of-1604 shots from the floor, and 123-of-366 shots from beyond the 3-point arc (.336), while allowing opponents to shoot .481 overall (753-of-1565) and .374 from 3-point land (181-of-484). Privateer opponents, meanwhile, averaged 73.6 points, 33.0 rebounds, 12.9 assists, 7.6 steals and 4.4 blocks last season.
"It's been huge to have continuity in our program for the first time in my tenure here, to have guys returning, to be off our APR sanctions, to be able to start practice when everybody else starts and have a full run heading into these tough two games," Slessinger said. "I think we're going to see the fruits of our labor over the course of the year. We've played a lot of young guys over the last two years. We've invested a lot of time and minutes in these young guys to give them preparation for moments like this. I'm excited to see how we perform to see the mix of our new guys and our returners."
Other returning lettermen are senior center
Travis Avery (0.7 ppg, 0.2 rpg), junior guard
Tevin Broyles (8.7 ppg, 3.4 rpg), sophomore wing
Michael Zeno (2.2 ppg, 1.6 rpg) and sophomore guard
Matthew Jiles (0.1 ppg, 0.4 rpg).
In addition, UNO welcomes the talents of seven newcomers – two junior college transfers and five true freshmen – for the upcoming season. Heading up the list of new faces are
Erik Thomas and
Lamine Mbodj, who transferred to the Privateer program from Baton Rouge Community College and Otero Junior College, respectively. Thomas was the Louisiana JuCo Player of the Year and first-team NJCAA All-Region 23 after averaging 17.9 points, 10.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.2 steals per game last season at BRCC. Mbodj, meanwhile, appeared in 59 games in two seasons at Otero and posted career averages of 5.9 points and 4.4 rebounds per outing.
Joining the Privateers from the high school ranks are guards
Danny Cohen (Natchitoches Central HS/Natchitoches, Louisiana),
Coleman Edwards (Fort Bend Clements HS/Sugarland, Texas),
Cameron Reed (Eastern HS/Louisville, Kentucky), Corey Visnon (Salmen HS/Slidell, Louisiana) and
Venjie Wallis (Brother Martin HS/New Orleans, Louisiana).
"We had a really good recruiting class," Slessinger added. "Our two junior college guys – Eric and Lamine – have been a big help for us inside. They've added some size and some muscle to our interior game. Our guard trio is going to play a lot for us as true freshman – Danny [Cohen], Coleman [Edwards] and Cameron [Reed]. They've really come on strong, had good camps in the fall and showed major improvements throughout the time we've put in during the preseason."
The Falcons soar into the 2015-16 campaign with three starters among eight lettermen back from last year's 21-12 season, which saw Bowling Green finish third in the Mid-American Conference's East Division with an 11-7 mark and advance to the second round of the MAC Championship with an 88-75 victory over Ball State in its tournament opener.
As a team, Bowling Green averaged 66.5 points, 35.0 rebounds, 12.3 assists, 6.6 steals and 3.7 blocks per game. Three of the top four Falcons' scorers have all graduated and Zach Denny is the top returner after averaging 9.2 points per outing a year ago. Denny is also Bowling Green's top returning rebounder with a 5.2 average last season and also paced the squad with 53 steals in 2014-15. David Joseph is also back after dishing out a team-best 109 assists last year.
Bowling Green connected at a .431 clip from the field in 2014-15, hitting 778-of-1806 shots from the floor, and 218-of-647 shots from beyond the 3-point arc (.337), while allowing opponents to shoot .413 overall (728-of-1764) and .330 from 3-point land (219-of-663). Falcon opponents, meanwhile, averaged 62.9 points, 33.6 rebounds, 10.8 assists, 6.2 steals and 3.5 blocks per game a year ago.
"They're a team that has a lot of athleticism," Slessinger said of the Falcons. "They've got a lot of big, swing guys – a lot of 3-4 combo guys – that are 6-5 to 6-7 and are great athletes. That'll be some hard match-ups for us. A key for us will be to really rebound the ball at a high level to limit them to one shot. We also need to get out in transition and get some easy baskets with our transition offense. If we can do that, we'll be good. They've got one of the best 3-point shooters in their league [in Denny]. We're going to have to neutralize him and keep him from getting hot."
Saturday's game marks just the second all-time meeting between New Orleans and Bowling Green on the hardwood. In the lone match-up to date, the Privateers dropped an 87-56 decision the Falcons in the Stroh Center. Avery is the lone member of the UNO roster to appear in that contest, logging one minute of action but did not record an official statistic.
Following the weekend trip to Bowling Green and Duquesne, New Orleans will open the home portion of the schedule on Thursday, Nov. 19, against Pensacola Christian College at 7 p.m. in Lakefront Arena. The game against the Eagles is the second half of a Privateer basketball double-header as the women's team will take on LSU-Alexandria at 5:30 p.m.
Season tickets for the UNO men's basketball team remain on sale at prices of $100 for general admission and $500 for Courtside Krewe status. UNO alumni can order season tickets for $80 while faculty and staff season tickets run $50. Single-game tickets are also available for pre-order and at the gate at $10 for general admission, $5 for children 12 and under and $7 each for groups of 10 or more. Current students can attend all UNO events free of charge with a valid ID.
Tickets can be purchased by calling the UNO Athletics Ticket Office at (504) 280-GAME (4263) or visiting logging on to the internet at UNOPrivateers.universitytickets.com/packages/PackageList.asp and clicking on "Season Tickets" in the header.
