PORTALES, N.M. – Eastern New Mexico men's basketball is back on the road for a road exhibition with (RV) Grand Canyon University. Before the Tuesday night matchup, please take a look at the Starting Five:

1.) Top Talent – Greyhound men's basketball began the exhibition portion of the 2024-25 season with a 117-54 result versus No. 10 Arizona. The Wildcats shot well from the floor going 38-of-60 (63.3%). One of their top transfer players scored a team-high 24 points and showed exactly why he was the 2024 Horizon League player of the year. Future lottery pick, Caleb Love scored ten points going 0-for-3 from behind the arc in the first half and adding just one bucket. Love picked up where he left off from his all-american season in 2023-24 by finding double digits over the Hounds. The Greyhounds kept the battle for second chance points tight. The Wildcats held that advantage, 13-10. Leading ENMU offensively was Cougar Downing with 11 total points.

2.) Effective Bigs – The two bigs for Eastern New Mexico played effectively against the "even bigger" bigs for Arizona. Jose Murillo scored nine points and hauled in three rebounds on 4-of-5 shooting. Andrija Maric added six points and two rebounds while playing 25 total minutes and shooting 3-of-6. One struggle for the bigs early in the game was staying out of foul trouble. Murillo picked up a pair of early fouls but managed to stay away from fouling and completed the game with three over 20 minutes of play. Maric was one of two Hounds with four total fouls.

3.) Familiar Grounds – Head coach Daven Võ is very familiar with Grand Canyon. The first-year leader of ENMU men's basketball was an assistant for GCU during the 2008-09 season. He helped the program go 13-14 during that season. Võ also spent several years at South Mountain Community College as an assistant and head coach. He spent a decade at South Mountain Community College.  In that time, he helped 34 student-athletes move onto four-year universities, coached four all-americans, 13 all-conference players, four academic all-american teams, and guided his team to a national tournament appearance. Under his leadership, the team received NJCAA Academic All-American honors with a 3.1 team GPA - the first time in the SMCC Men's Basketball 32-year history.  Vo led the team to the nation tournament in 2016 and was recognized as the NJCAA Region 1 Coach of the Year. 

4.) The Scout – Grand Canyon is a highly talented basketball team. The Lopes are bringing back seven players from a team that won 30 games a year ago. Five of the programs six leading scorers from 2023-24 are still on the team. Tyon Grant-Foster led the conference with 20.1 points per outing. He was joined by teammates Ray Harrison (13.5 ppg), Collin Moore (8.2 ppg), Duke Brennan (7.0 ppg), and Lok Wur (5.7 ppg) for the team outlook on scoring. The third leading scorer, Gabe McGlothan (12.8 ppg), is the only player not with the team still after being in the top-six in average points per game. GCU was third in the nation with 19.3 made free throws per game. Per game, they averaged 79.1 points, 38.14 rebounds, 46% shooting from the floor, 5.5 blocks, and 8.3 steals. Two areas they struggled from were assists per game (12.1) and fouls per game (17.9).

5.) Against The Lopes – The overall series between GCU and ENMU is 26-11 in favor of Grand Canyon. The last time Eastern won a game versus the Lopes came in 1984. Both programs played an exhibition in 2022. The only Greyhound from this year's roster who played in that game was Jose Murillo. He picked up a pair of assists and a block in the contest. The final score was 71-43 in favor of GCU. Ray Harrison started the game for Grand Canyon and posted double digit scoring efforts with 12 total points. The only time Eastern New Mexico beat Grand Canyon on the road came in 1963. The rest of the wins have come in Portales.