Men’s Basketball
The men’s basketball team is on a road trip, but its not like one they have been on before.
The Mustangs are currently touring, playing, practicing and giving camps across Africa. A trip to a foreign land for most, it is also a return home for some.
For Bamba Fall, Papa Dia and Mouhammad Faye, it is a return home. In fact, the team visited the hometown of Fall and Dia in St. Louis, Senegal. In a blog entry on the athletic Web site, Fall talked about having his “United States family” meet his family in Senegal.
The Mustangs lost to the Senegalese National Team by five points. SMU will also face the South African National team and the South African Club Team. The Mustangs will return home on June 5.
Football
The Mustangs aren’t holding official practices, but June Jones is once again making headlines. At the end of April Jones, won the Byron Nelson Celebrity-Am along with teammates Dodge Carter, Philip Cullum and Donny Evans.
At the beginning of May, Jones was honored with the Kulia I Ka Nu’u Award for Leadership by the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce of Northern California in San Francisco. The award translates into “strive for the summit.”
The SMU football coach will hit the baseball diamond. During SMU night, hosted by the Texas Rangers at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, on Wednesday, June 4, at 7:05 p.m. Jones will throw out the first pitch. SMU students, faculty, staff and friends of the university can get tickets at a discounted price.
Men’s Soccer
Once again there is a job opening at FC Dallas and the Mustangs’ head coach Schellas Hyndman is forced to deny his interest in the job.
Hyndman, who has coached at SMU since 1984, coached Clark Hunt who is the chairman and founding investor of Major League Soccer. Hunt Sports Group owns FC Dallas, also run by Hunt.
“I’ve had a good relationship with the Hunt family for a long time, and that’s why they always link me to FC Dallas every time they’re looking for a coach. But I haven’t met with anyone,” Hyndman said in an article in The Dallas Morning News.
The Mustangs have reached the NCAA Tournament in each of the last 14 seasons and have spent numerous weeks at the No. 1 spot in many polls over the past three seasons.
Volleyball
A Former Mustang returns to SMU as a coach. Charity Savedra has been hired as an assistant coach by head coach Lisa Seifert.
Savedra was a member of Seifert’s first team at SMU in 1996. She was the first player in SMU history to earn all-conference accolades.
Savedra has experience coaching at the high school level as well as at the junior college level, including a fourth-place finish in the NJCAA Tournament.
“She has accomplished a lot in her young career and is a proven coach. I know she is a self-starter and her loyalty, commitment and passion will be invaluable to our program. Needless to say, I am very happy about her coming back to the Hilltop,” Seifert said in a press release.
