What to know about SIU Edwardsville, Houston's first-round opponent at NCAA tourney
Houston and its fans now know which team the Cougars will be facing to open up the NCAA Tournament.
The Cougars will be taking on SIU Edwardsville on Thursday in the opening round of the Midwest Region at Wichita, Kan.
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But some may be asking, what is SIU Edwardsville, and how did it make the field?
Here's a few things to know about SIU Edwardsville:
• The SIU stands for Southern Illinois University, with the main campus located in Carbondale. This branch of SIU is located in Edwardsville, in the southwest part of the state, located about 30 miles northeast of St. Louis, Mo.
• Like Houston, SIU Edwardsville's athletic teams are also known as the Cougars.
• SIU Edwardsville is coached by Brian Barone, who is the son of former Texas A&M and Creighton coach Tony Barone. Brian Barone has been the coach of the Cougars since 2019. He played for his father at Texas A&M and then transferred to Marquette.
• The SIU Edwardsville Cougars are from the Ohio Valley Conference. They qualified for the NCAA's by defeating Southeast Missouri State, which was the regular season champion, in the title game of the OVC Tournament, 69-48.
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• SIU Edwardsville will be making its first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.
• SIU Edwardsville has been a Division I member since 2008-09. Prior to that, the Cougars played in NCAA Division II as a member of the Great Lakes Valley Conference, and advanced to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight in the 2005-06 season.
• SIU Edwardsville enters the tournament with an overall record of 22-11. The Cougars have averaged 72.6 points per game and have allowed an average of 66.1 points.
• SIU Edwardsville played Indiana and Illinois back-to-back in early November and lost both games. The Cougars also lost to Wisconsin-Green Bay, coached by Doug Gottlieb, who also finds a way to still do a national weekday radio show. It was one of just four wins this season for Wisconsin-Green Bay.
• SIU Edwardsville dropped its first two games in conference play, to Little Rock and to SE Missouri.
• Graduate guard Ray'Sean Taylor was named a finalist for the Lou Henson Award, presented annually to the top mid-major college basketball player. He was chosen as the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year after leading the league in scoring, averaging more than 19 points a game. Taylor also became SIU Edwardsville's all-time leading scorer after scoring 20 points in the OVC tournament title game, as he now has 1,952 points.
