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ISLANDERS (20-13) VS.
KENT STATE (22-11)
Monday, March 23 • 7 p.m.
AMERICAN BANK CENTER • CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
TICKETS
LIVE: Stats | Video | Audio | Twitter
RADIO: NEWSRADIO 1360 KKTX (Yannis Koutroupis)
VIDEO: CollegeInsider.com
2015 POSTSEASON GUIDE
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THE OPENING TIP
The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's basketball team returns to the Coastal Bend for a second-round matchup in the College Insider Tournament against Kent State. The Islanders advanced with a road win over Florida Gulf Coast, while the Golden Flashes downed Middle Tennessee State on the road in the opening round.
QUICK HITS
• Texas A&M-Corpus Christi picked up its 20th win of the season on Wednesday, marking the fourth 20-win season in program history and the first since the 2006-07 team went 26-7.
• John Jordan is the only active player in Division I with at least 1,500 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists in his career. He joins Devin Gibson (UTSA) as the only players in Southland Conference history to accomplish the feat.
• Head Coach Willis Wilson collected his 50th win as the Islanders' bench boss on Wednesday. After starting the rebuilding process with back-to-back six-win seasons, he has led the Islanders to 38 wins in the last two years.
• Junior Bryce Douvier has stepped up his game of late. He has finished in double figures in seven of the last nine games after failing to reach that mark the prior six. He posted a double-double with 17 points and 11 boards at FGCU, and is averaging 10.6 points and 8.0 rebounds in the last eight.
• Jordan continues to add to his school-record scoring total, posting three straight games with 20 points or more. It is the first time in his career that he has scored 20-plus three times in a row, and he now has 23 games with at least 20 points in his time for the Islanders.
• FGCU managed to puncture the Islanders defense, which has been stifling over the last 10 games. The Eagles hit at a .459 clip from the field, the highest against the Islanders since Feb. 21. No team in the last 10 has hit better than 33.3 percent from downtown, and eight of the 10 have failed to reach 40 percent overall.
• Sophomore Rashawn Thomas has been hampered by foul trouble as of late, averaging just 22.3 minutes and 4.5 rebounds in the last four games.
• The loss to Sam Houston State in the Southland Tournament was just the second time this year that the Islanders have lost when holding the opposition under 40 percent (13-2). The Bearkats took 39 free throws and converted 29 of them.
• Jelani Currie has been strong as of late, averaging 8.8 points in the last five. He is shooting .556 (15-for-27) from the field and .667 (4-for-6) from beyond the arc in that span.
• This marks the fifth meeting between the Islanders and Golden Flashes all-time, and the first in Willis Wilson's tenure. Kent State holds a 3-1 lead in the all-time series, but fell to the Islanders 81-73 on Jan. 2, 2007, in the only game in Corpus Christi.
TOURNEY TIME
The Islanders are back in the College Insider Tournament for the second straight year. A season ago, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi went on the road and knocked off Northern Colorado, 82-71, in the opening round before heading to Pacific in round two, where the Tigers topped the Islanders 89-60.
Following Wednesday's win, the Islanders are 2-2 in postseason tournaments, with the other contest in the 2007 NCAA Tournament, when the 15th-seeded Islanders were topped by No. 2 seed Wisconsin, 76-63.
ATOP THE BOOKS
Senior John Jordan has made a steady climb up the school record books this year, setting new school records in points, steals, assists, minutes, games played, games started, 10-plus point games and free throws. He is also second in field goals and fifth in rebounds in school history.
But he might have notched his most impressive record in the season finale. With 11 points and six rebounds against ACU, he upped his career totals in those categories to 1,500 and 500, respectively. With his recent games, he now has 1,562 points, 514 rebounds and 646 assists, making him the only active Division I player and just the second player in Southland Conference history to eclipse 1,500/500/500.
Jordan obliterated the school record for assists this season, topping Brian Evans in the first month of the year. He now has 646 dimes in his career, a total that ranks him ninth among active players in the NCAA. He has 172 assists this season, leaving him in second place in school history. He needs just six dimes to set a new school record for the fourth straight year.
He picked up First Team All-Southland honors for the second straight year, joining Kevin Palmer as the only players to twice be named to the first team. He also earned honorable mention in his sophomore campaign.
NEW RETURNER
He may be a newcomer for Islanders fans, but redshirt junior Bryce Douvier is plenty familiar to those within the program. The native of Sedgwick, Kan., sat out last year due to NCAA transfer rules after joining the team from the University of Northern Colorado.
It has been an up-and-down season for Douvier, who got off to a tremendous start, but fell into a rut at the end of January. After posting his first double-double at New Orleans, he ran through six straight games in single figures. But he bounced back in the second game against UNO with 10 points to begin a run of five straight games in double figures. He has carried that over into the postseason, posting a double-double at FGCU with 17 points and 11 rebounds, and is averaging 10.6 points and 8.0 rebounds in the last nine.
Last year, while he wasn't able to play in games, he had a big impact on the team during practice, running the opposing team's plays in helping the team prepare for the upcoming game. His father, Randy, played professionally in Austria.
COACHING THEM UP
Head Coach Willis Wilson reached a milestone on Wednesday, collecting his 50th win in his Islanders tenure. After starting the rebuilding process 15-59 in his first two and a half years, he is 35-17 since the start of conference play in the 2013-14 season.
Wilson also garnered his first 20-win season in over 10 years with Wednesday's win. His last year with 20 wins came in the 2003-04 season with Rice, when the Owls went 22-11.
DA NA NA, DA NA NA
The Islanders returned to the SportsCenter Top 10 on Wednesday night, with Jelani Currie's putback flush coming in at No. 8 on the countdown. John Jordan's monster jam at St. Louis was No. 3 on Nov. 23.
SOPHOMORE SENSATION
After a strong freshman campaign, sophomore Rashawn Thomas followed up on that with an outstanding season, earning Second Team All-Southland honors from the league.
The start of the season saw him post three double-doubles in his first 10 games, more than the two he logged as a freshman. But he reached another level in the next 10 contests, with six double-doubles in that span.
Lately, his rebounding has fallen off, partially due to foul trouble. In 11 of the last 14 games he has not topped eight boards, though he posted an impressive 14 rebounds on Feb. 16 against UNO. His final carom of the night transpired into a game-winning three-point play.
Offensively, he has hit a little bit of a rough spot, as he has faced a bevy of double and triple teams, and over the last three games he has averaged just 9.7 points. He averaged a team-best 15.6 points in conference play, including five 20-point games. He has been particularly strong at the line, though, clicking at a .707 (82-for-116) clip from the stripe in the last 16 games.
GET ON THE LINE...AGAIN
While his scoring, defense and assists all draw a lot of attention, the most notable thing about John Jordan may be his ability to get to the free-throw line. The senior has been to the line 277 times this year, the third-highest total in the nation. Only Gardner-Webb's Jerome Hill and Maryland-Eastern Shore's Michael Myers have been to the line more often.
In his time in an Islanders uniform, he has been to the line 797 times in four years, a total that ranks him second among active players nationally, trailing only Auburn's Antoine Mason, who took a whopping 941 free throws in his career. His 538 career free throws made are also a school record, and he ranks eighth among active players in the NCAA with that total.
Jordan isn't the only Islander getting to the line, though. Rashawn Thomas is behind only Jordan in the league and 23rd nationally with his 217 free-throw attempts. The Islanders as a team sit second the Southland, behind only Sam Houston State, and the 856 attempts are seventh in Division I, just 54 attempts behind national leader Auburn. With 587 makes at the line, the Islanders are behind SFA and SHSU in the league, and sit 10th nationally.
CURRIE THRIVES
It had been an up-and-down season for Jelani Currie heading into the Dec. 20 matchup at CSUN. He started the first nine games, posting 10 points in the opener and eight in the victory over St. Louis. But over the next six games, he fell into a slump, going 6-for-19 (.316) from the field and averaging just 3.3 points over that span. His struggles saw him removed from the starting lineup at CSUN.
He came off the bench in the Dec. 20 contest, but went 0-for-1 from the field in the first half. But the second half was a completely different story, as he hit all eight shots he attempted, including seven behind the three-point line. He also went 4-for-4 from the stripe for 27 points after the break.
It marked a career high for the junior, as he became the first player in school history to make every three pointer he took with more than four attempted. He finished one triple shy of the school record of eight, set by Josh Washington in 2007.
The Albany, N.Y., native has not seen that level of offensive success since, but he has made solid contributions as of late off the bench, scoring 44 points in the last five games, an average of 8.8 per contest. He scored 14 points in the victory over Houston Baptist to start the run, and capped it off with 12 points against FGCU, going 5-for-5 from the field. In the five-game span, he is shooting at a .556 (15-for-27) clip overall from the field, while he is 4-for-6 (.667) from beyond the arc.
DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS
In its recent 10-game swing going 8-2, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi has really stepped it up on the defensive side of things. The Islanders have limited eight of the last 10 to under 40 percent from the field. As a whole, the opposition has shot .365 overall and just .273 from beyond the three-point line. As a result, the Islanders have allowed just 58.9 points per game over the last six.
The season finale was a success of historic proportions. The Islanders allowed a program-record low 27 points, just one point shy of being the best defensive effort in Division I this season. Abilene Christian shot just 18.8 percent from the field in the contest, and their nine field goals were a record low for an Islanders opponent.
