TYLER, TEXAS – The University of Texas at Tyler men's basketball team will compete tomorrow evening against DBU at 7 p.m. in a rescheduled Lone Star Conference contest.
 
Tuesday's game was originally scheduled for Friday, Dec. 31^st, but was postponed due to COVID-19 protocols within the DBU program. The match-up will feature a Patriot squad that enters the game with an 11-4 record and a DBU side that has rattled off five straight victories in LSC play and sits second in the league standings with a 4-1 conference record.
 
Both teams appeared in the latest edition of the D2SIDA South Central Region Rankings with UT Tyler coming in at no. 7 and DBU sitting at no. 10.
 
LAST TIME OUT
 
UT Tyler made the trip out to Silver City, N.M. on Saturday afternoon and came away with a 63-52 win over the Mustangs. Senior Da'Zhon Wyche went for a season high 28 points after pushing UT Tyler to a quick 15-2 advantage less than seven minutes into the contest.
 
That fast start combined with a defense that limited Western New Mexico to a 31.6 percent (18-of-57) percentage from the field allowed UT Tyler to lead for over 38 minutes of the contest. The Patriots never allowed the deficit to draw to a one-possession ball game at any point in the second half.
 
UT Tyler outrebounded the Mustangs by a 44-to-25 margin for the game, 13 of which rebounds came from junior Milan Szabo, and moved their overall record to 11-4 on the year and 3-3 in Lone Star Conference play.
 
PATRIOTS IN THE RANKINGS
 
The Patriots appeared in the no. 7 spot in the latest edition of the D2SIDA South Central Region poll, and have appeared within the top 10 of the rankings in each of the last seven editions of the poll. UT Tyler rose to as high as no. 3 back on Dec. 13^th in the week five edition of the rankings.

Lubbock Christian and West Texas A&M both stayed put in the no. 1 and no. 2 spots respectively, while the Lone Star Conference occupied seven of the 10 available spots in the rankings for the third straight week.
 
WYCHE WENT WILD
 
Senior Da'Zhon Wyche posted back-to-back season high scoring numbers with 21 points against Texas A&M-Commerce in last Tuesday's losing effort and 28 points against Western New Mexico on Saturday afternoon. Wyche went 14-for-30 (.467) from the field and knocked down six three-point makes to average 24.5 points between the two games for UT Tyler last week.
Wyche was also efficient at the free throw line, going 15-for-17 for the week from the charity stripe. He has raised his season scoring average to 12.3 points per contest, and has shot better than 40 percent on the year from field goal range (42.0 percent) and from three-point range (40.3 percent).
 
HOME SWEET HOME
 
 The Patriots survived a brutal road trip and schedule of combined travel and games last week, and will now shift their attention to three key home games this week. The first test of the week will pit UT Tyler against a DBU squad that is playing as good as any in the LSC at the moment having won five straight LSC contests entering Tuesday night's meeting.
 
DBU is now 10-6 on the year, and sits in the no. 10 spot in this week's D2SIDA South Central Region Rankings. Both of the latter two opponents for the Patriots this week also sport records with double-digit wins in a 10-5 Texas A&M-International team and a 10-4 Texas A&M-Kingsville side.
 
Texas A&M-Kingsville currently sits in the no. 9 slot of the D2SIDA South Central Region Rankings.
 
The plus side of facing three straight top-level opponents in a row is that all three of those contests will take place inside the Herrington Patriot Center. UT Tyler is 6-2 on the year inside the friendly confines of their home arena and have just six regular season home games remaining on the 2021-22 schedule.
 
HISTORY AND SCOUTING THE PATRIOTS
 
DBU and UT Tyler already met once earlier this season in the first edition of the battle of Patriots back on Dec. 11^th, a contest in which UT Tyler came away with a 77-60 victory in Dallas. Wyche dropped 19 points in that win for the Patriots in which they never trailed at any point of the contest.
 
The scene for the second match-up between these two sides will now move to Tyler, and will also take place as a game marked as conference competition. DBU has won six out of their last eight games following that loss to the Patriots in early-December, and finds themselves right back in contention at the top of the LSC standings with a league record of 4-1.
 
DBU played just one game last week, a 79-69 win over Midwestern State in Dallas. The offense for the Patriots has come to life in games against conference opposition as the Patriots have averaged the third most points against LSC foes (77.4 ppg), and have shot the third best field goal percentage (47.6 percent) in LSC games.
 
Cameron Kahn has also evolved into a quality scorer in his five games against an LSC foe, and sits seventh in the league with an average of 16.2 points in conference play. Kahn averages 12.4 points on the year, best on the team, while Carson Hughes (11.1), Ricky Lujan (11.0) and Austin Garner (10.2) have all posted season scoring averages in double digits.
 
The all-time series sits at 1-1 following the UT Tyler win earlier this season. Tuesday's game will be the first meeting between the two sides in Tyler.