First Scouting Report: In Texas A&M-Commerce, Kentucky will face a team in transition
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Game day: No. 16 Kentucky 86, New Mexico State 46
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Monday night’s men’s basketball season opener between Kentucky and New Mexico State in Rupp Arena.
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A look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
No. 16 Kentucky (1-0) will face Texas A&M-Commerce (0-2) on Friday, Nov. 10, at Rupp Arena (capacity 20,545) at Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington.
The game will tip off at 7 p.m. and be broadcast via internet streaming only on SEC Network+.
Texas A&M-Commerce has begun its season with road losses at Texas A&M (78-46) and at Texas Tech (73-46).
Series history
This will be the first meeting between Kentucky and Texas A&M-Commerce in men’s basketball.
Know your foe
1. Until it joined the Texas A&M system in 1996, the university now known as Texas A&M-Commerce went by East Texas State.
Texas A&M-Commerce is in its second of a four-year transition period required by the NCAA for schools who are moving up from NCAA Division II to Division I. An invitation from the DI Southland Conference allowed Texas A&M-Commerce to move up in classification.
Absent an NCAA rule change, the Lions will not be eligible to participate in the Division I NCAA Tournament until the 2026-27 school year.
The most prominent connection between Texas A&M-Commerce and Kentucky is the late Guy Morriss.
After serving four seasons (1997-2000) as Hal Mumme’s offensive line coach at UK, Morriss became Kentucky head football coach. The Wildcats went 2-9 in the first season Morriss served as coach, but improved to 7-5 in 2002.
Morriss parlayed the 2002 improvement into the head coaching position at Baylor.
Subsequent to his tenure with the Bears program, Morriss spent four seasons (2009-2012) as head coach at Texas A&M-Commerce, going 10-31.
Morriss died on Sept. 5, 2022, at age 71.
2. Texas A&M-Commerce men’s basketball is coached by Jaret von Rosenberg. A former player at Hartford, von Rosenberg is 101-66 in six prior seasons leading the Lions program.
Though Texas A&M-Commerce went 13-20 last year, its first season transitioning to NCAA Division I, the Lions scored notable victories over Air Force (73-69 in overtime), Hawaii (53-51) and Eastern Kentucky (75-61).
3. Texas A&M-Commerce’s top player is 6-foot-9, 215-pound sophomore forward Jerome Brewer. Brewer averaged 8.2 points and 3.7 rebounds a game, and shot 51.5% from the floor last season as a college freshman. Through this season’s first two games, Brewer leds the Lions in scoring (12 ppg) and rebounding (seven rpg).
Brewer will find some familiar faces at Rupp Arena. He graduated from the same high school, New Jersey’s Camden High, as did UK freshmen D.J. Wagner and Aaron Bradshaw.
This story was originally published November 6, 2023 at 10:02 PM.
