Silent Night Highlights Men's Basketball Week

LAKELAND, FLA.-- Over the week of Thanksgiving, the 23rd-ranked Southeastern men's basketball team spent the week at "The Show" in Kingsport, Tennessee featuring some of the best teams in NAIA Division II basketball.
 
Rio Grande University and West Virginia Tech were the opponents for SEU.  The Red Storm and the Fire faced off first, and the Fire came away victorious by a close score of 96-93.  Senior Jake Hodges had the best night of his college career, scoring a career-high 31 points on 11-19 FG shooting.  Senior Larry Taylor scored 21, Elijah Ray scored 18, and Linwood Ross dropped another 16. 
 
The Fire needed all the help they could get, as they survived a pair of 3-point attempts by the Red Storm in the closing seconds.
 
West Virginia Tech handed the Fire their first loss of the season, 85-63.  Turnovers shot the Fire in the foot, as they couldn't overcome 17 of them.  Xavier Burrow led the team in scoring with 16 points and four assists.  Matt Crowe added 13 points while Ray contributed with 11 points and nine rebounds.  
 
After the showcase, the Fire now stand at 5-1 going into the first two Sun Conference matchups, and bumped up nine spots in the first NAIA Division II Coaches' Top 25 Poll to No. 14.  Through the young season, the Fire lead all of NAIA Division II in 3-pt FG percentage, as they're shooting 49% from beyond the arc, and are second in field goal percentage at 54.7%.  

On Wednesday night, SEU will host the Webber International University Warriors at 7:30 p.m. and on Saturday afternoon, the Fire will make the drive down to Miami Gardens to take on Johnson & Wales University at 4 p.m.  
 
Webber comes to town with a 5-6 record so far this season.  They're on a two-game winning streak, most recently recording wins over NCAA Division III Franklin College and Division II Western State Colorado University.  Junior Daniel Coffey leads the team in scoring with 15.4 PPG, and senior Dewaine Lyals leads the team with 6.3 RPG.  

The game will be SEU's annual "Silent Night" contest, in which the fans will remain silent until the Fire have scored their tenth point of the game. The team will also be collecting new, unwrapped toys for the Parker Street Ministries Toy Drive. 
 
Johnson & Wales is 3-3 so far this year, most recently falling to Barry 87-72.  The key to beating the Wildcats will be stopping Ricardo Suarez.  The junior leads the team in scoring (16.2 PPG), rebounds (7 RPG), assists (4.2 APG), and steals (1.6 SPG).
 
For all the latest on men's basketball, follow @SEUFireMBB on Twitter.