SAN ANTONIO – Trinity University Men's Basketball gets it redemption opportunity this weekend as it hosts the rematches of its Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference-opening weekend with Centenary College (LA) Friday, No. 14 University of St. Thomas Saturday.
 
The Tigers (13-4, 6-2 SCAC) have not lost since the first weekend of December, sweeping their two contests in the 2022 Leslie Robinson Christmas Classic as well as the remainder of the first tour of SCAC play, for eight straight.
 
As the second half of the regular season is underway, senior AJ Clark (San Antonio, Texas / Johnson) begins to work upward in the career record book at Trinity. Clark ranks fourth all-time in both assists (349) and steals (156), ranking 16^th and 19^th, respectively, in active NCAA III careers while his ranking in steals sit just outside the top-100 across all levels of NCAA Men's Basketball. The hometown Tiger is also inside the top-ten in rebounds (557) with pace to reach near the top-five.
 
Senior Ben Hanley (Flower Mound, Texas / Flower Mound) stands within range of the top-ten list at Trinity in field goal percentage at 48.1 percent for his career while the line needed sits at 48.6 percent.
 
A pair of young Tigers—sophomore Jacob Harvey (Huffman, Texas / Hargrave) and first-year Zach Fenn (Covington, La. / Saint Paul's)—are on pace for historic single-season performances.
 
Harvey has an opportunity to hit the trifecta in three-point records as he is on pace to clear the 10^th spot in both makes (46) and attempts (101) and is within half of a percentage point of 10^th at 45.5 percent from deep.
Fenn's 37 steals this season put him well-within range of 10^th all-time (47), a spot held by current Trinity Women's Basketball Head Coach Cameron Hill from the 1996-97 season.
 
Head Men's Basketball Coach Jimmy Smith will seek career victory No. 150 this weekend as he currently sits at 149-97 in his 10^th season at the helm of a NCAA III program. Smith's first two seasons in San Antonio have netted him his best two by winning percentage, currently at 46-12 (.793) since taking his post ahead of the 2020-21 campaign.
 
Preview: Second SCAC round-robin begins…
 
Trinity continues to lead the conference in points per game (77), steals per game (10.2), defensive rebounds per game (29.1) and at the free throw line in both makes (17.4) and attempts (24.6) on average. The free throw categories are both good for top-ten in NCAA III this season while the steals per game rate lands just shy of the top-25 in 28^th.
 
Harvey cracks the top-20 in NCAA III as one of the most efficient shooters both at the charity stripe and beyond the arc. The sophomore ranks 14^th at 91.1 percent from the line while his 45.5 percent clip from deep sits 17^th.
 
This weekend will be Trinity's first nationally ranked opponent in No. 14 St. Thomas since its trip to upstate New York in November where it faced now-No. 7 University of Rochester. The Celts cracked the top-25 in the poll immediately following the last meeting with the Tigers in Houston and have slowly risen through SCAC play.
 
Other rankings news around Region 10 include Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges just behind St. Thomas at No. 15, as well as University of Texas-Dallas, East Texas Baptist University and University of Redlands (CA) all receiving votes in the latest poll.
 
On the Gents: December's slip-up in Shreveport, Louisiana for the Trinity men has loomed as Centenary remains tied in the SCAC standings with the Tigers for second at 6-2 in an overall 12-4 record. Texas Lutheran got the better of the Gents, 68-67, in Seguin, Texas in mid-December. Centenary's other loss came in a home, midweek matchup with St. Thomas last week, 54-50: a contest that stayed within two possessions for all but 45 seconds, including the entire second half.
 
December's outing between Centenary and Trinity tipped the scales of the series between the two programs back to the Gents, 12-11, since the start of the 2012-13 season, though Trinity had won five of the previous seven meetings and has won each of the last three contests in San Antonio.
 
Centenary ranks seventh in NCAA III for turnovers forced per game (20.94) this season and through that effort, ranks 16^th in turnover margin (5.2).
 
Seth Thomas will be the player to watch for the Gents as he's posted five double-doubles this season, one of nine statistical categories where he ranks top-three among SCAC players. Despite the team being ranked outside the top-100 in NCAA III, Thomas is 16^th in free throws made (80) and 27^th in attempts (103).
 
On the Celts: St. Thomas stands as the last undefeated squad in SCAC play this season at 14-2 overall, 8-0 in the SCAC. Saturday night will mark the eighth meeting between the two programs since January 2021 as the two have met for each of the last two SCAC Championship bouts and split regular-season meetings during that time.
 
In their first campaign as a full-fledged member of the NCAA, the Celts have taken the court with all four of the other Region 10 programs listed in this week's D3hoops.com poll this season, all in a span of nine days in November. St. Thomas hosted ETBU for an 83-81 affair November 15, ventured to the west coast to split matchups with now-no. 15 Claremont-M-S (W, 84-79) and Redlands (L, 80-72) in November's third weekend, then immediately followed with a 58-53 midweek victory at UT-Dallas on November 23.
 
Following the mid-December road trip weekend of Texas Lutheran and Southwestern, the Celts played five straight games to single-digit margins, including their second loss of the campaign, 66-63 at Hardin-Simmons University. St. Thomas broke this trend Sunday with an 87-52 rout of Colorado College in Houston.
 
The Celts only rank in the top-25 in NCAA III in one category: winning percentage. St. Thomas sits just on the other side of that threshold at 26^th in scoring defense, allowing just 62.9 points per game this season followed by the 38^th-best three-point percentage at 37.3 percent and 43^rd-best average scoring margin at plus-10.9 points per contest.
 
The reigning SCAC Player of the Week for the last three cycles, Calvin Williams, will be the player of note Saturday, riding high off of his career-high 26 points—one point shy of half of his team's total—in the victory over Centenary.
 
Down the road…
 
Trinity Men's Basketball will venture out on the road for the final time in the 2022-23 regular season following a brief hiatus next weekend. The Tigers will make return visits to Schreiner University (Jan. 31) and Colorado College (Feb. 5) before returning home for the duration of the 2022-23 schedule.
 
Trinity will host its final two regular-season weekends February 10-18, and then will take on hosting responsibilities for the 2022-23 SCAC Men's Basketball Championship tournament in on campus in San Antonio February 24-26.