Eight newcomers to help XU Gold Rush open 2016-17 season

NEW ORLEANS — Xavier University of Louisiana will open the 2016-17 men's basketball season Tuesday with eight student-athletes in their first season with the program.
     
The Gold Rush, 21-13 and a qualifier for the Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I National Championship a year ago, will play host to Carver College of Atlanta at 7 p.m. in XULA's Convocation Center.
     
Alfred Williams, a Gold Rush standout player from 2004-08 and a XULA assistant coach from 2009-15, will begin his first season as head coach. Carver, a member of the National Christian College Athletic Association, opened its season in the Crescent City Monday with a 74-60 loss at Loyola.
     
New to the Gold Rush this season include:

 •  Donovan Armstrong, a 5-foot-9 guard from Round Rock, Texas, and Round Rock High School. He's a business sales and marketing major at Xavier.
     
•  Jalen David, a 6-4 guard/forward from Mount Vernon, N.Y., and Mount Vernon High School and Moberly Area (Mo.) Community College. His major is business management.
     
•  Jerry Gibson, a 6-5 forward from Alexandria, La., and Alexandria Senior High School. He is a biology/pre-medical major.
     
•  Monte Lambert, a 6-3 guard from the Bronx, N.Y., and James Madison High School. He's majoring in business management.
     
•  Khalil McCoy, a 6-2 guard from Suwanee, Ga., and Newman High School. He is a chemistry/pre-pharmacy major.
     •  Hakeem Simon, a 6-10 center from St. Patrick, Grenada, St. Mark's Secondary School and Seminole State (Okla.) College. His major is business management.
     
•  Mike Williams, a 6-3 guard from Houston and Fort Bend Travis High School. He's a computer engineering major.
     
Another XULA newcomer is Evan Howard, a 6-8 forward/center from Biloxi, Miss., whose signing was announced in February.
     
Armstrong was first-team all-district in basketball and football. As a senior he averaged 15.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.6 steals per game. The website texasbasketballreview.com said of Armstrong, "Quick and strong, good ballhandler, hits the 15-footer or floaters." In football Armstrong intercepted five passes his final season and scored on an 87-yard punt return.
     
David averaged 7.2 points, reached double figures 17 times and made 32 3-pointers for a Moberly team that reached the final 16 of the NJCAA Division I national tournament. As a prep senior he averaged 14 points and seven rebounds for a 29-4 team and had 19 points, 14 rebounds and nine steals in one game.
     
Gibson led ASH in rebounding his senior year and was second-team all-district. He was an four-year honor-roll student, and he amassed 250 hours of community service.
     
Lambert was a conference scoring leader his senior year at James Madison, scored a school-record 44 points in one game and reached 30 points five other times. Between James Madison and XULA, he spent a year at Trinity Pawling, a New York prep school where he was a starter. The website HoopGroup.com said of Lambert, "Skilled guard that can score in transition. He is crafty with his finishes and rebounds well for his size."
     
McCoy was all-region and was chosen Coweta County Player of the Year by the Newnan Herald newspaper his senior year. Three times he reached 30 points, with a high of 32 his final season. Academically, he was in the top five percent of his graduating class.
     
Simon — the tallest Gold Rush player since 6-10 Ronald Allen in 2004-05 — averaged 2.2 points and 2.3 rebounds for Seminole State and had career highs of 11 points and 12 rebounds in the same game. He shot 51.5 percent from the floor the past two seasons; he spent his first collegiate year at another two-year school, Western Oklahoma State.
     
Williams was second team District 23-6A as a senior, and his game highs included 36 points and 14 assists. He started in football (wide receiver and running back) as a senior, and he logged service hours through All Saints Anglican Church.
     
David and Simon will have two years of eligibility apiece at Xavier; the others will have four seasons apiece.
     
Returning XULA players are Seth Jackson at guard, Leland Alexander and Lucas Martin-Julien at guard/forward and Wesley Pluviose-Philip at forward. Also back is guard Innocent Kukulu, who redshirted as a freshman in 2015-16.

2016-17 Men's Basketball Roster

2016-17 Men's Basketball Roster

No.	Name	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Yr.	Exp.	Hometown	High School	Previous School
2	Seth Jackson	G	6-1	176	Sr.	1L	Baton Rouge, La.	Redemptorist	Baton Rouge CC
3	Leland Alexander	G	6-5	180	So.	1L	Houma, La.	Ellender
4	Khalil McCoy	G	6-2	180	Fr.	HS	Suwanee, Ga.	Newnan
10	Wesley Pluviose-Philip	F	6-7	230	Sr.	3L	Albany, N.Y.	Albany
11	Lucas Martin-Julien	G	6-2	187	Jr.	2L	Reserve, La.	Riverside Academy
12	Jalen David	G/F	6-4	208	Jr.	JC	Mount Vernon, N.Y.	Mount Vernon	Moberly Area CC
13	Monte Lambert	G	6-3	200	Fr.	HS	Bronx, N.Y.	James Madison
14	Evan Howard	F/C	6-8	235	Fr.	HS	Biloxi, Miss.	D'Iberville
21	Innocent Kukulu	G	6-0	180	Fr.	RS	Staten Island, N.Y.	Curtis
23	Mike Williams	G	6-3	190	Fr.	HS	Houston, Texas	Fort Bend Travis
25	Donovan Armstrong	G	5-9	172	Fr.	HS	Round Rock, Texas	Round Rock
30	Hakeem Simon	C	6-10	240	Jr.	JC	St. Patrick, Grenada	St. Mark's	Seminole State (Okla.) JC
33	Jerry Gibson	F	6-5	221	Fr.	HS	Alexandria, La.	Alexandria Senior

Coaching Staff

Coaching Staff

Name	Title
Alfred Williams	Men's Basketball Head Coach
Tyrone Mitchell	Men's Basketball Assistant Coach
Ryan DeRousselle	Men's Basketball Assistant Coach
Devin Andrew	Men's Basketball Assistant Coach

Goals have changed at A&T since Broadway's first homecoming

GREENSBORO, North Carolina — It's homecoming week at N.C. A&T.

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s just another football game.

“Yeah, we treat it different,” A&T head coach Rod Broadway said. “Because I was told when I was hired, ‘All we want to do is win homecoming.’

“But as you go along, the rules change. You go from winning homecoming to, ‘Now we want to win championships,’ and then, ‘Now we want to win them all.’ It’s a moving target. But that’s OK. Because I want to win them all, too.”

A&T had lost seven consecutive homecoming games before hiring Broadway in February 2011. The Aggies have won all five homecomings since.

The Aggies (4-0 MEAC, 6-1 overall) will host Florida A&M (3-5, 3-2) at 1 p.m. Saturday, the second time in the last three years the Rattlers will be A&T’s homecoming opponent.

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Surging FAMU Rattlers face FCS No. 12 North Carolina A&T on Saturday

TALLAHASSEE, Florida -- After an 0-4 start during which the Rattlers were beaten by an average of 35.75 points per game, Florida A&M has won three of its last four games and is above .500 in MEAC play.

Over the last four weeks, FAMU has played some of its best football in recent years. The Rattlers are 3-1 over four games for the first time since 2011 – that season was also the last time the Rattlers finished the regular season with a winning record.

Led by redshirt freshman quarterback Ryan Stanley, the Rattlers have averaged 26 points per game over their last four contests after failing to score more than 17 points in their first four games.

Head coach Alex Wood, speaking during his weekly press conference, said he’s pleased with where the Rattlers are eight weeks into the season. FAMU is coming of a 31-14 homecoming victory over Hampton.

“After that performance on Saturday, I am (pleased),” Wood said. “We can build on that and go forward, absolutely.”

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S.C. State Bulldogs football at the 'real' part of the MEAC schedule

ORANGEBURG, South Carolina -- The ride in 2016 has gone from disappointing to both entertaining and pleasing for the South Carolina State football team.

But, literally, this is where the rubber meets the road in two tough conference road games the next two Saturdays.

It was hard for supporters of the Bulldogs program to see this year's team keeping its balance and focus after three straight season-opening losses to more powerful Football Bowl Subdivision programs (Central Florida, Louisiana Tech and Clemson).



But, three games into the Football Championship Subdivision schedule - and three games into the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference portion of the schedule - S.C. State has three consecutive wins in its pocket.

The Bulldogs took a 30-3 homecoming win against Delaware State this past Saturday. That, along with recent wins at Florida A&M and at Howard, has the Bulldogs (3-3 overall, 3-0 in MEAC play) warmed up and a bit battle-tested to play higher-ranked MEAC competition this Saturday at 1 p.m. at Hampton (3-2 in MEAC) and the following Saturday at top-rated North Carolina A&T (4-0 in MEAC).

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Fobbs goes to bat for Grambling assistants in new contract

GRAMBLING, Louisiana -- Quarterbacks coach Kendrick Nord sent a text last week to congratulate Grambling head coach Broderick Fobbs on his new contract extension.

Fobbs had no interest in the praise. Instead, he dished it back to Nord and the rest of the Tigers' staff.

"He says, no, man. It's us. Everything is about us," Nord said. "No matter what you try to get him to do to give him that credit he's not gonna take it."

It was about the assistants, not Fobbs in the latest two-year contract extension he signed. Fobbs didn't receive a pay raise from his base salary of $195,000, but instead negotiated bonus incentives for he and his staff.

His contract, which runs through 2018, has a section of $95,000 'bonus pool' money the assistants are eligible for based on certain achievements, including a regular season record of .500 or better, a Black College National Championship, a Celebration Bowl Championship and a SWAC Championship.

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'He balled out' Southern's defense remembers Lenorris Footman after Alcorn QB's big game last year

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- Blake Monroe was not eligible to compete in last year’s Alcorn State game, but he was there on the sideline when Braves starting quarterback John Gibbs went down with an injury on Alcorn State’s second possession of the game.

When his backup, Lenorris Footman, came in the game, Monroe admitted to feeling like that was probably a good thing for the Jaguars.

“But Footman just came in and went off,” Monroe said. “He balled out.”



That’s one way to describe what Footman did to Southern’s defense last season.

In mucky conditions that left the A.W. Mumford turf looking more like a mud pit than a football field, Footman carried the ball 16 times for 274 yards.

“Whenever he saw an open lane, he took it,” junior corner Danny Johnson said. “He scored some touchdowns.”

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ASU's Jenkins calls Classic ‘opportunity to create memories’

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- It’s time to talk the Magic City Classic.

Alabama State (2-5, 2-4 SWAC) is coming off a bye week after a 56-24 win over Mississippi Valley State on Oct. 15.

Hornets coach Brian Jenkins said the bye week came at a great time for his team.

“It was much needed,” Jenkins said. “The bye week gave us time to take a step back and fine-tune some things. The players got a chance to be with their families and get caught up on academics. We can always use a break, especially during a time like this.”

The Hornets will wind up at Birmingham’s Legion Field where they will take on rival Alabama A&M in the 75th edition of the Magic City Classic at 3 p.m. Saturday.

The Bulldogs (2-5, 2-4) are also coming off a bye week, following a 40-7 win at Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Oct. 15.

Alabama State earned a 35-20 victory last year’s Magic City Classic, which was its third win in the last four meetings. A&M leads the all-time series 39-37-3.



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