UTRGV men’s basketball (6-3) will kick off conference play at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday in a doubleheader against new Western Athletic Conference member Dixie State (4-2) at home at the Fieldhouse.
Dixie State previously played in the DII Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and last season, 2019-20, finished with a 23-7 record and atop the standings but were knocked out in the second round of the RMAC Basketball Tournament.
This will be the first-ever meeting between the Vaqueros and the Trailblazers in program history and, as UTRGV assistant coach Jai Steadman explained, the coaching staff has been hard at work studying their new opponent.
“First of all, they’ve played six games, we, as a staff, we’ve watched every game multiple times,” Steadman said. “They’re very well-coached, they have a very good team, they’re fundamentally sound, they’re tough, they’re smart, very scary on paper and so we are hoping to compete at a high level and be able to get a win Friday, and then we’ll make adjustments and see what happens on Saturday.”
Another wrinkle this conference season is the installment of back-to-backs to minimize travel and COVID-19 risk and teams will have to adjust accordingly to manage player health and stamina throughout the final stretch of the season.
Steadman said the basketball program has developed a recovery plan in tandem with the UTRGV strength and conditioning program throughout the offseason to keep players healthy and well-rested during the season.
“[Head strength and conditioning coach] Lucas Monroe has done a great job in the training room,” he said. “The extra conditioning we’ve done, even when we were in and out of COVID – missing some guys – the other guys were here running, doing extra stuff. We go really, really hard then we back off so we’ve kind of worked our way up to this point where we’re not just throwing it into this weekend.”
Steadman explains the team’s depth will also allow head coach Lew Hill to more easily manage player minutes but will also allow key players not to be rushed back from injury.
“We have 14 guys that can play including Nick [Mora] and Isaiah [Garcia], that make it 16, so we are deep, expect to play everyone and rotations – coach does a good job and lets me sub a lot too – we keep an eye on everybody’s minutes,” he said. “Obviously, we want to win having Javon [Levi], Jeff [Otchere] and Sean [Rhea] coming back from injuries. Obviously, we’ll watch that a little bit, but Uche [Dibiamaka], [Ricky] ‘Doc’ [Nelson], Anthony [Bratton], Malik [Lawrence-Anderson], [and] Marek [Nelson] we have enough where we can rotate everybody and we should be okay.”
The status of two key players, Levi, who has missed the last four games, and Rhea, who went down with an apparent ankle injury in last Thursday’s 96-67 victory over St. Mary’s, statuses are unclear for this weekend’s games.
To listen to the game live, visit utrgvradio.com or download the RadioFX app on the Apple Store or Google Play.
For more updates and highlights, visit GoUTRGV.com.
For Vaquero Radio, I’m Luis Rubio.
