PORTALES, N.M. – Eastern New Mexico men's basketball will be playing their final regular season game at West Texas A&M Thursday night. Before the Hounds head to Canyon, please take a look at the Starting Five Preview:

1.) Hounds Rewind: ENMU men's basketball is coming off a 77-72 loss to (RV) St. Mary's. The rebounding battle went heavily in favor to StMU, 47-32. Eastern had three players finish in double figures in the contest. Mario Whitley led the program with 19 points. The Saginaw, Mich, native shot 6-of-10 from the floor, but was limited to just five rebounds. Treyvon Byrd had a productive outing with 14 points and a team-best eight rebounds. His layup with under eight minutes remaining was the final field goal for ENMU in the loss. Cougar Downing continues to shoot the ball at a high clip as he completed the game with 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting, including a 3-of-5 mark from behind the arc. Eastern had the lead in the contest for 35 minutes, but could not come out on top as the Rattlers finished the game on a 9-0 run.

2.) Best Ball: The Greyhounds saw a five-game winning streak come to an end Saturday, but the program is still playing some of its best basketball of the season. The five-straight wins is the most for the program at any point this year. Four of those five wins came by double digit margins. In fact, nine of the team's 13 conference wins have come by 10+ points. Saturday marked the eighth time this season that ENMU has recorded at least ten steals in a game. Senior Mario Whitley has scored 15+ points in the last five contests, including a career-high 32 points in a win over Sul Ross State two weeks ago. Senior Cougar Downing has made a three point shot in 16-straight games. Treyvon Byrd has six-straight contests with at least one block.

3.) Eastern On The Rise: Eastern New Mexico is the best team in the Lone Star Conference in effective field goal percentage (.565), fast break points (20.89), field goal percentage (51.8), rebound margin (+7.6), defensive rebounding (26.81), scoring margin (+14.1), and scoring offense (88.9). Several student-athletes lead individual categories in the LSC as well. Jose Murillo's 38 blocks and 1.41 blocks per contest sit at number one in the league. Murillo is also atop the statistic chart in field goal percentage (68.1%). Mario Whitley is one of two players in the LSC with ten double doubles. Junior Cooper Jackson leads the LSC with 63 total steals. Senior Cougar Downing leads the conference with a 47.4% mark from three point range.

4.) NCAA DII Regional Rankings: Eastern New Mexico is one of ten programs in the regional rankings released by the NCAA Wednesday afternoon. Seven of the ten teams in the rankings come from the Lone Star Conference. ENMU sits in the seven spot between MSU Denver (6) and Regis (8). The top seed currently is Colorado School of Mines with a plethora of programs from the LSC to follow. The order 2-5 goes Dallas Baptist, Lubbock Christian, Midwestern State, and St. Mary's. The teams in the nine and ten spots are Angelo State and West Texas A&M.

5.) Rivalry Rematch: The Nov. 2024 edition of the battle between Eastern New Mexico and West Texas A&M was a tight contest. Both teams fought closely in a game that took overtime to decide the 99-95 result. The Buffs were led by their leading scorer Ahamed Mohammed who has 25 points on 7-of-17 shooting. He ended up making nine free throws in the game. Foul trouble was a major indicator in the contest. ENMU committed 34 fouls and WT was called for 26 total. The program from the Lone Star state managed to go 35-of-48 from the charity stripe and Eastern went 17-of-30 from the same range. West Texas A&M had three more players score in double figures, including Amir McMillian (19 pts) who has not played in a game since Feb. 1. The Buffs shot well from three point range as they connected on 10-of-22 (45.5%). One player who had a major impact for Eastern was Mario Whitley. The senior had 21 points and a season-best 15 rebounds. One area Whitley struggled with was committing seven total turnovers. Treyvon Byrd nearly had a double double with 13 points and nine rebounds. The overall series history between the two programs is dominated by WT, 97-20. The Buffs have a 15-game winning streak over Eastern New Mexico. The Hounds will look to win their first game in Canyon since 2014.