Auburn Game Notes

THIBODAUX, La. – The Nicholls State University men's basketball team opens the 2013-14 regular season on Friday night, taking on the Auburn Tigers at 7 p.m. in Auburn Arena.
 
The Colonels are opening up the 55^th season of intercollegiate competition this season, as the team begins its journey to conference play and hopefully a sixth consecutive trip to the Southland Conference tournament in mid-March.
 
Nicholls will not go into the contest on Friday night on the Plains rusty, as the squad pieced together a solid performance last Saturday in a 72-64 win over the University of Mobile Rams in an exhibition contest in Stopher Gym. The Colonels have played the Rams in each of the last few seasons, winning each contest in the process.
 
The team returns four starters and 10 letterwinners for the new season, as the squad will be led by preseason second team All-Southland Conference selection Dantrell Thomas, who scored a team-high 16 points on 6-of-18 shooting from the field and was the only player to finish the game in double figures. Thomas is the top returning scorer, as he averaged over 13 points and four rebounds per game last season.
 
A total of 12 players saw action during that exhibition last Saturday, as the Colonels were able to work in much of the returning talent that will power the team in upperclassmen Jeremy Smith, Shane Rillieux and Pedro Maciel, and talented youth in JaMarkus Horace, Amin Torres and T.J. Carpenter. Nicholls also got much of their freshmen and signees involved as Liam Thomas earned the start and had three blocks to go along with six points, while Luke Doyle connected on two 3-pointers and had eight total points off of the bench.
 
The Colonels are opening the year in Auburn for the second time in three seasons, as Nicholls is 1-4 all-time against the Tigers in team history. The last time these two teams met, Auburn defeated Nicholls 78-57 in 2011, the first time in the series history that the team did not score at least 75 points. In program history, Nicholls is 2-44 against teams from the Southeastern Conference but earned its first win over the SEC when it defeated Auburn on Nov. 30, 1993 and earned its second win against LSU in 2010.
 
With 70 percent of its scoring punch returning for the Colonels, Nicholls takes on an Auburn team that went 9-23 last season and 3-15 in SEC play. The Tigers return just two starters and four letterwinners from that squad, with eight newcomers joining the fold this year. Head coach Tony Barbee is in his fourth season at the helm, with a record of 39-59 and 117-111 overall as a head coach. If Nicholls can hold Auburn to its 2012-13 season average of just 64.8 points per game, they could have a chance at pulling off the upset and earn its first season-opening win since 2008.
 
The radio broadcast of the game will begin with the Colonel Countdown pregame show, beginning 15 minutes prior to the start of the contest.
 
 
GAMEDAY INFORMATION
TV: None
Radio: KNSU 91.5 FM
Broadcast Team: Clyde Verdin (play-by-play)
Live Stats: www.AuburnTigers.com