Big Sky Basketball: In-depth look at Southern Utah senior guard Tevian Jones
By Bryan Mauro
Why you should know Tevian Jones
Jones enters his senior year looking to get the Thunderbirds back to the NCAA tournament. Southern Utah has only been one time in their Division 1 history and that was back in 2000-2001 season. Lots of players transfer down from a high major to a low major but not every team is able to snag a player the caliber of the senior guard. Jones began his career at Illinois and transferred to Southern Utah at the beginning of last year. He was granted a waiver to play right away last year like every transfer.
The guard was a huge piece of the offense that head coach Todd Simon liked to run. Jones came right in and instantly became one of the premier scorers in the league. As mentioned, the Thunderbirds scored a shade under 85 points per game a season and were one of the very best offensive teams in the country a season ago.
Due to their prowess on offense, the Thunderbirds blew the doors off most of the teams they played in the Big Sky. As a result of the scores, Jones played under 30 minutes a night. The guard was still able to put up huge numbers.
Jones led the Thunderbirds in usage rating averaging about 13 shots per game, in three-pointers made and taken, and in free throws percentage. The guard made under 50 percent of his shots but was still able to score 17 points per game. He was streaky from deep and was able to hit 35% of his shots from long range.
While Jones doesn’t have the most efficient numbers in the world, he is still good enough to be thought of as one of the elite offensive players in the Big Sky. He scores in a lot of creative ways. He likely is going to shoot much better from deep and should be slightly more efficient this year.
This was his first year as a full-time starter and playing a big bulk of the minutes for his team in college. Jones and the Thunderbirds are going to be very good again and don’t be surprised if they make a run to March out of the Big Sky. Jones is going to be right in the thick of everything for Southern Utah this year.