WASHINGTON – The first test of the season for head coach
Duane Simpkins and American University men's basketball is a big one, as the Eagles head to #22/20 Villanova for a 7:30 p.m. contest on Monday, November 6. The ranked opponent is the first for AU in six years, and the game will be nationally televised on FS1.
Quick Info
- Date/Time: Monday, November 6; 7:30 pm
- Site: Villanova, Pa. (Finneran Pavilion)
- Series History: Villanova leads, 11-0
- TV: Fox Sports1 (FS1)
- Talent: Scott Graham and Jim Spanarkel
Inside the Series
- The all-time series belongs to Villanova with 11 wins in 11 games.
- The Wildcats have a 6-0 record on their home court against American, and were ranked #1 in the last matchup on Dec. 21, 2016 when they beat the Eagles by a score of 90-48.
- Three of the meetings have been since 2009 (2009, 2011, 2016) while the rest were prior to 1994.
What to Know About American
- Monday's contest is the first in the head coaching career of Duane Simpkins, hired at American in April. Simpkins is familar to fans in the DMV, having played at prep power DeMatha Catholic and for Gary Williams at Maryland, where he scored more than 1,100 points in the mid-1990s.
- Despite the change at the top, the Eagles returned four of their top five scorers and have a strong core of leaders with five seniors on the roster. It's a team that defeated both Georgetown and GW last year and made a late-season run to the Patriot League semifinals.
- AU's leading scorer last season was forward Matt Rogers (14.1 ppg), who returns for his fourth year and still has one remaining in 2024-25. Rogers was an All-PL Second Team pick as a junior, and a Preseason All-PL selection this season.
- Junior guard Elijah Stephens has 97 career steals after just two years, and came close to cracking the all-time single-season steals list with 60 steals as a sophomore last year.
- American had the advantage extra practices for a foreign trip this past summer, as the Eagles embarked on a nine-day trip to Italy in August. AU flew to Naples and also spent time in Rome and Florence, playing three games against international competition.
- Villanova, ranked 22nd in the Preseason AP Poll and 20th in the Preseason Coaches Poll, is the first ranked team the Eagles will face since a 98-64 loss at #24 West Virginia on Nov. 15, 2017. The last time AU faced the Wildcats, Villanova was ranked #1 (Dec. 16, 2016).
What to Know About Villanova
- Villanova is looking to bounce back in 2023-24 under second-year head coach Kyle Neptune. The Wildcats went 17-17 last year, missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012, a stretch that saw them win the national title in 2016 and 2018.
- Eric Dixon, a redshirt senior, was a Second Team All-Big East selection last year and has been named to the Watch List for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, which goes to the top center in college basketball. He led the Cats with 15.4 points and 6.5 rebounds per game last year.
- Grad student Justin Moore, a DeMatha Catholic product, returned from ankle surgery last year to put up 13.5 points a game in 13 contests. He was a Second Team All-Big East performer in 2021-22.
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