After losing to East Carolina on Wednesday, the Mustangs will play UCF, which has won six of its last nine games, on Saturday.
SMU, on the other hand, has lost its last four games.
The team’s struggle to put up points continued on Wednesday as they only scored 43 against East Carolina, just two points away from their season low.
In the game against ECU, SMU was without leading scorer and rebounder Robert Nyakundi.
He is also a Conference USA Player of the Year candidate.
With Nyakundi gone, freshman guard Jalen Jones stepped up for the Mustangs.
Jones had 11 points on 4-6 shooting, while the Mustangs as a whole shot 43.6 percent.
Jones also grabbed eight rebounds and had one assist.
No other Mustang scored in double digits on Wednesday.
The key difference in the game was from behind the arc, where SMU went zero for 11.
East Carolina took a lot more shots from outside, making 10 of 28 three-pointers.
The Mustangs were also out-rebounded 22-33 by ECU.
With the loss against ECU, SMU is now 10-12.
In Conference USA, they dropped two spots below Tulane and East Carolina into the last place spot. SMU’s conference record is 2-6.
Fortunately, the Mustangs will be playing five of their next six games at home, where they are 6-2 this season.
Additionally, four of these games will be against C-USA opponents, which will give SMU a much-needed chance to improve their conference record.
UCF won’t be easy to defeat though.
They’re 16-6 in the season, with a conference record of 5-3.
The Knights are led by junior forward Keith Clanton, who leads the team in rebounds and averages 15.5 points a game.
The other player to watch out for is UCF junior guard Marcus Jordan, son of the great Michael Jordan, who is also averaging 15.5 points per game and leads the team in assists.
In fact, both of MJ’s sons played for UCF this season until Air Jordan’s older son Jeff recently left for personal reasons.
Although Jeff didn’t have much of an impact on the team, the less Jordans to worry about on the court, the better.
The game against UCF will tip of at 2 p.m. in Moody Coliseum.
The Mustangs will try to right the ship and turn their losing streak around.
