By Austin Turner — Staff Writer
Just as the weather in the Bay starts to get cold, the San Jose State men’s basketball team gets to escape to Bimini in the Bahamas for a 3-game round robin Junkanoo Jam tournament over the weekend. The trip marks the first time in program history that SJSU will travel outside of the U.S. for a game.
Joining the Spartans in the Bahamas will be three other mid-major programs: Cal-State Bakersfield, Central Michigan and Weber State, which will be SJSU’s first opponent of the weekend.
It will be a talented field, as all three squads that the Spartans will face had a winning record last season.
The jam will follow a round robin format. The winners of SJSU-WSU and CMU-CSUB will face each other on Friday, while the losers will play on Saturday. Then, the Spartans will take on whichever team they have not played yet on Sunday.
Three games in four days will be tough, but it should provide some much-needed time for the new, young roster to mesh and build chemistry.
The Spartans will head into Thursday’s tip-off against Weber State with a 1-1 record. They’re coming off of a tough loss at home to Southern Utah, one in which they led late but gave up a 22-8 run in the final moments to give the Thunderbirds the 66-59 win.
Rebounding will be a focus for them in this tournament. The team was beat 45-34 on the boards against SUU, and aside from budding-star forward Michael Steadman, who had 14, the Spartans were out-hustled near the rim.
The opener against Weber State should be a good test to see if the Spartans will improve their rebounding from their first two games, as the two teams have similar size.
Shooting will be huge in tournament. SJSU has excelled thus far in getting open shots and driving to the paint, but the shooting simply hasn’t been there.
The team is shooting 42 percent so far, and only 29 percent from three. They did however improve in the second half of the SUU game, shooting 42 percent compared to 29 percent in the first half – but the consistency will need to be there for them to have a chance in this tournament.
Spartan fans will get a taste of what this team will turn out to be over the weekend, and it should produce some exciting matchups.
SJSU opens up the Junkanoo Jam on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at Resort World Bimini, The Bahamas.
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