CSUN Faces Texas A&M in the Wooden Legacy on ESPN3

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NORTHRIDGE, CA---

CSUN Men's Basketball (2-2) heads to Fullerton, CA to compete in the Wooden Legacy beginning on Thanksgiving Day. The Matadors will take on Texas A&M in the opening round of an eight-team tournament on Thursday at 11 a.m. on ESPN3. Ghizal Hasan and Alan Zinsmeister will call all the action from Titan Gym on an audio broadcast on the CSUN Sports Network.

The winner of the Matadors and Aggies on Thursday will face the winner of New Mexico and Virgina Tech in the second round of the Wooden Legacy while the losers of each game will meet each other as well. Both games will take place on Friday with the losers of each game meeting at 12 p.m. and the winners of the opening round games squaring off at 2:30 p.m. from Fullerton. CSUN will also compete on Sunday in the final day of the tournament in either the championship game or a consolation contest in Anaheim, CA at the Honda Center.

CSUN heads into the Wooden Legacy with a bit of momentum after defeating Northern Illinois inside The Matadome last Saturday. Trailing by as many as nine including five points with less than 5:00 left to play, CSUN rallied to defeat the Huskies, 84-82. Senior guard Aaron Parks led all scorers with 22 points on an impressive 10-of-13 shooting to go along with eight rebounds. Tying a career high, junior Tavrion Dawson poured in 21 points off the bench while junior Kendall Smith added 15 points and eight assists. Battling foul trouble, sophomore forward Rakim Lubin scored a career-best 10 points to help CSUN to victory.

Shooting 51.9 percent from the floor against NIU, the Matadors continued their trend of hot shooting to start the season. CSUN has shot 50.0 percent or better in three of four games for a 48.6 percent clip thus far. The Matadors only trail Cal State Fullerton (48.7) in shooting percentage in the Big West Conference. On the flip side, CSUN has been able to hold teams to 40.9 percent from the field on the season, which is third-best in the conference.

Smith leads the Matadors in scoring with 17.5 points and in assists with 5.3. In four games, Smith has scored in double digits in each game and has not scored less than 15 points in any contest. Providing punch off the bench, Dawson is second in scoring with 15.8 points per game on an impressive 60.6 percent shooting from the field. Dawson is also second in rebounding at 6.3 a game. Also averaging in double figures, Parks is posting 15.0 points per game while junior Darin Johnson is scoring 10.8 points. On the boards, Lubin leads the team with 6.8 rebounds to go along with 6.8 points.

Converting on a free throw against the Huskies, Parks is three made free throws away from reaching the Matadors' all-time Top 10 list as he currently sits at 325. Parks is also on pace to reach 1,000 points for his career this season. With 830 points in his CSUN career, Parks would need to average at least 6.8 points the rest of the regular season to reach the milestone, which is well below his career (9.7) and season averages.

Junior center Dylan Johns will have an opportunity to play his former team, Texas A&M, on Thursday. Johns played 40 games with the Aggies from 2013-15 and scored 38 points and pulled down 35 rebounds. In his first season with the Matadors, Johns has averaged 5.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.3 blocks in 20.3 minutes.

The Matadors are 2-16 against the Wooden Legacy field all-time. CSUN has never faced Texas A&M, Dayton or Nebraska in team history. The Matadors are 0-1 against Virgina Tech, 0-4 versus New Mexico, 1-2 against Portland and 1-9 with UCLA. Facing teams from the Southeastern Conference, the Matadors are 0-4 all-time but have not competed with any teams from the conference since facing Vanderbilt during the 2004-05 season.

A Closer Look at Texas A&M
The Aggies are 2-1 this season with all three of their games taking place at Reed Arena. Defeating American, 76-53, last Monday, Texas A&M fell to USC, 65-63, on Friday. In 2015-16, the Aggies posted their most wins in team history by going 28-9 and earned a trip to the Sweet 16 last March. Texas A&M also won its first ever SEC Championship last season.

Sophomore center Tyler Davis leads the Aggies in scoring with 13.7 points and in rebounding with 7.3. Davis is also shooting 60.9 percent from the field in 21.7 minutes on the floor. Sophomore DJ Hogg is averaging 12.0 points for Texas A&M and he owns a 42.1 shooting percentage from 3-point range along with 6.0 rebounds. Another sophomore, guard Admon Gilder is the team leader in assists with 4.7 and he is scoring 8.3 points per game this season.

CSUN Faces Texas A&M in the Wooden Legacy on ESPN3

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Players Mentioned

Tavrion Dawson

Dylan Johns

Darin Johnson

Aaron Parks

Kendall Smith

California State University Northridge Athletics