Men's Basketball Challenges Memphis on ESPNU Wednesday Night

Wednesday, February 20

Memphis, Tenn.

6 PM

Tulane University

Memphis

Men's Basketball Challenges Memphis on ESPNU Wednesday Night

Feb 19, 2019 | Men's Basketball

GAME 25: TULANE Green Wave (4-20, 0-12 AAC) at MEMPHIS Tigers (11-11, 7-6 AAC)
When:	Wednesday, February 20, 2019 \| 6 p.m. (CT)
Where:	Memphis, Tenn. \| FedEx Forum
Watch:	ESPNU \| WatchESPN app
Commentators:	John Brickley (PxP) & Mark Adams (Color)
Radio:	1280 AM New Orleans \| Listen Online
Radio Talent:	Todd Graffagnini (Play-By-Play)
Live Scoring:	SIDEARM
Notes:	Tulane \| Memphis \| American Athletic Conference
Social Media:	@GreenWaveMBB \| #RollWave

NEW ORLEANS - The Tulane men's basketball team heads to Memphis for its next conference tilt on Wednesday, February 20. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m., at FedEx Forum.

The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU and available on the WatchESPN app. John Brickley will deliver play-by-play of the action, while Mark Adams provides color commentary.

STARTING FIVE
    1. Tulane looks to secure an American Athletic Conference regular-season series split and score its first league win of the season against a Memphis team that has lost four of its last six games.
    2. Last time out, Tulane suffered an 85-50 loss to ninth-ranked Houston on Sunday, February 17 in New Orleans. The Green Wave committed trailed by just nine at halftime and committed only five second-half turnovers, but the Cougars sunk 17 3-pointers to widen the margin. Caleb Daniels led the Wave with 13 points and five assists, as Samir Sehic chipped in 12 points.
    3. In the first meeting between Tulane and Memphis on Jan. 13 in New Orleans, the Tigers held a 15-point advantage at halftime, but the Green Wave outscored Memphis by 11 in the second half, as the Tigers escaped with an 83-79 win. Kevin Zhang scored a season-high 25 points, while senior Blake Paul registered his first career double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds – both personal bests.
    4. During Mike Dunleavy Sr.'s NBA coaching career, he coached against current Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway during his playing career a total of 20 times. Dunleavy's teams won six of those matchups, while Hardaway averaged 16.3 points per game against Dunleavy-coached teams.
    5. In his 17 years as an NBA head coach, Dunleavy only had one former Memphis player on one of his rosters, as Vincent Askew suited up for Dunleavy as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1997-98, which included a run to the Western Conference Finals.

BY THE NUMBERS
• 7 – Redshirt junior forward Samir Sehic has posted seven double-doubles this season and has nine in his career after compiling two last year.
• 40.4% – Tulane's four active freshmen Kevin Zhang, Connor Crabtree, Shakwon Barrett and Moses Wood have played 40.4% of the Green Wave's team's minutes this season.
• 56 - Redshirt senior guard Jordan Cornish has scored 944 points in three plus seasons (two at UNLV, second at Tulane) and needs just 56 more to eclipse 1,000 for his career.

SCOUTING MEMPHIS
• The Tigers (15-11, 7-6 AAC) enter Wednesday's matchup with wins in two of their last three games, but are coming off a 79-72 road defeat at UCF on Saturday.
• Memphis owns a 12-2 record on its home court this season, with the only losses coming against nationally-ranked opponents in Tennessee and Cincinnati.
• The Tigers rank first in The American in scoring offense (81.3), but last in scoring defense (76.5). They are also the leaders in assists per game (15.9), second in field goal percentage (.459) and third in steals per game (8.3), as well as turnover margin (+1.54).
• Guard Jeremiah Martin is the team's leading scoring threat (17.6 ppg) and ranks sixth in the conference, as well as third in steals (2.3) and fourth in assists (4.3) per game (4.3). Forward Kyvon Davenport is fifth in field goal percentage (.528), sixth in rebounding (6.8) and 14th in scoring (14.2).

MARDI GRAS UNIFORMS
• Tulane will wear Mardi Gras-inspired uniforms to celebrate Carnival season for the second year in a row for six games ahead of Fat Tuesday on March 5.
• The Green Wave donned the Nike threads for the first time at home against Tulsa on February 14 and will again for the last time at Temple on March 3.

20-POINT PERFORMANCES
• Tulane has had five different players score at least 20 points in a game this season, the most among any American Athletic Conference program:
• Caleb Daniels (6) - vs. Coastal Carolina, South Dakota State, South Alabama, Texas Southern, UConn, Temple
• Kevin Zhang (3) - vs. Florida State, Georgia State, Memphis (1/13)
• Samir Sehic (2) - vs. Texas Southern, SMU (1/4)
• Jordan Cornish (1) - vs. UL Lafayette
• Shakwon Barrett (1) - vs. UT-Martin

CLEANING UP IN THE CLASSROOM
• The Green Wave compiled a 3.14 team GPA for the 2018 Fall semester, the highest recorded in program history.
• Buay Koka posted a perfect 4.0 GPA
• Nine of 14 players had at least a 3.0 GPA
• 10/14 players have a cumulate GPA of at least 3.0
• All five international players had at least a 3.0
• Tulane was named the recipient of the American Athletic Conference's Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2017-18 season, an honor given annually to one of the conference's 12 institutions sponsoring men's basketball that achieves the highest cumulative grade point average.

DUNLEAVYS LONE FATHER-SON HEAD-COACHING DUO
• In his third season as head coach, Mike Dunleavy Sr., is the only head coach with a son who is also a head coach at the NCAA Division I level.
• His son, Baker Dunleavy, is in his second season at the helm of Quinnipiac's program.

CONGRATS GRAD!
• Redshirt junior forward Samir Sehic earned his bachelor's degree in finance in May of 2018 with two years of eligibility remaining. He is currently pursuing his MBA at Tulane.

PAUL CLIMBING ALL-TIME BLOCKS LIST
• Senior forward Blake Paul is on the verge of becoming one of the 10 greatest shot blockers in program history:
1.         John Williams (1981-85)           192
2.         Lawrence Nelson (1994-98)      181
3.         Quincy Davis (2002-06)             165
4.         Jerald Honeycutt (1993-97)       163
5.         David Gomez (2004-08)            145
6.         Donnie Stith (2004-08)              142
7.         Robinson Louisme (2004-09)     117
8.         Linton Johnson (1998-2002)     99
9.         Anthony Reed (1989-93)           95
10.       Paul Thompson (1979-83)         92
11.        Blake Paul (2015-19) 91

ZHANG'S ARRIVAL MARKS RARE FOREIGN IMPORT
NCAA Division I men's basketball players hailing from China are rare, as freshman swingman Kevin Zhang is one of just five players nationally who can stake that claim along with CS Fullerton sophomore Johnny Wang, CS Northridge freshman Michael Ou, Cal-Berkley freshman James Zhao and UPenn frosh Michael Wang.

STRENGTH WITHIN THE SCHEDULE
• Tulane will play a minimum of 11 regular-season games against nine teams that earned postseason bids in 2018, including seven opponents that played in the NCAA Tournament (Cincinnati, Florida State, Georgia State, Houston, South Dakota State, Texas Southern and Wichita State). Temple and Southeastern Louisiana made NIT appearances.
• The Green Wave will host 15 home games and will head out to compete in five neutral-site contests. The Wave will play just one true road tilt in the non-conference slate at South Alabama on Dec. 8.

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA
For behind-the-scenes coverage, follow Tulane men's basketball (@GreenWaveMBB) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

WE ARE NOLA BUILT
Tulane University is located in the city of New Orleans. It is a city built on tradition and resiliency. The lessons Green Wave student-athletes have learned through their connection with this university and city have BUILT doctors, lawyers, business leaders, conference champions, all-conference players, All-Americans, professional athletes and NCAA tournament teams. The city of New Orleans has shaped us into who we are today. We are One City. We are Tulane. We are NOLA BUILT. Check out our story at NolaBuilt.com.