SAN ANGELO – The Angelo State men's basketball team will open its 2013-14 season this weekend with a pair of games against Great American Conference opponents in East Central University and Southwestern Oklahoma State at the SWOSU Basketball Classic being played at the Rankin Williams Fieldhouse in Weatherford, Okla.

ASU will take on ECU at 2:30 p.m. on Friday in a neutral court game before taking on tournament host SWOSU at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The Rams are 11-4 all-time against ECU and 10-6 against SWSOU.

"We have a lot of respect for both East Central University and Southwestern Oklahoma State," ASU head coach Chris Beard. "Both teams are very well coached. These are the type teams we try to schedule because it will prepare us for Lone Star Conference schedule beginning in January. Our team is a work in progress and we look forward to the competition this weekend."

ASU has six returners who will travel to Weatherford in Bryan Hammond, Chris Talkington, Reggie Sutton, Justin Walling, Zach Jones and Ryan Marsh. Newcomers starting their careers at ASU on Friday are seniors Kenny Williams and Ice Asortse, juniors Daniel Skinner and Tommy Woolridge, sophomores Omari Gudul, Nash Nelson and Thomas Brandsma and freshmen Chantz Chambers and Marshall Calvin.

Skinner and Hammond led the Rams with nine points each in their exhibition against Texas Tech last Friday in Lubbock. Williams added six point and six rebounds with Brandsma also grabbing six rebounds. Sutton scored eight points on a 4-for-4 shooting performance and Talkington hitting two 3-pointers and finishing the game against the Red Raiders with six points.

"We need to continue to improve as a team each day, in each game, in each practice, possession by possession," Beard said. "We are trying to establish a standard in how we play, then compete and execute at that level every possession. Good teams don't focus on the scoreboard; they focus on their execution and production play by play."

Returner Dakota Rawls will not be active on Friday because of injury. Click for roster analysis

Talkington is the Rams' leading returning scorer on the active roster following scoring 10.7 points per game last season after transferring from Nicholls State. The Grand Prairie native also had 4.3 rebounds per game and led the team with 43 3-pointers made in his junior season. Hammond, who is also a senior that transferred from Nicholls State, is coming off scoring 9.4 points per game and contributing 76 assists last season.

Sutton scored 5.0 points per game in 22 games played as a freshman, while Walling led the Lone Star Conference by shooting 53 percent from beyond the arc and averaged 4.0 points per game as a sophomore. Marsh led ASU with 26 blocks and scored 4.7 points per game in his first season in San Angelo after transferring from Dallas Baptist.  

Williams enters his first season at Angelo State after playing last season at McMurry University for coach Beard. A St. Louis, Mo. native, the 6-7 forward averaged 20.9 points per game and 7.9 rebounds as a junior last season before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. Asortse, a 6-7 forward who is from Nigeria, played the last two seasons at Stephen F. Austin after starting his collegiate career at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.  

Skinner transfers in from Jacksonville College where he earned JUCO all-American honors, while guard Woolridge earned all-American honors last season at North Dakota State College of Science after averaging 17 points per game. Woolridge played his first season at Tyler Junior College and averaged 12 points per game.    

Gudul, Brandsma and Nelson start their sophomores seasons and first year at ASU. Gudul, the tallest player on ASU's roster at 6-11, is from Congo and transferred to Angelo State after averaging a double-double as a freshman at Ranger College last season. Brandsma and Nelson are Colleyville natives and transferred to ASU this season after starting their careers at other DII universities. Brandsma played last season for Beard at McMurry with Nelson playing at Harding last season. Chantz Chambers and Marshall Calvin are freshman guards who will see their first collegiate action on Friday.  

EAST CENTRAL UNIVERSITY TIGERS
ECU returns nine players from a team which went 8-18 last season and are under the direction of first-year head coach Ja Havens. The Tigers have six seniors, two juniors, four sophomores and four freshmen on their roster and were picked to finish 10th in the GAC Preseason Poll.

Colby Carr, a senior from New Orleans, led the Tigers with 13.1 points and 8.0 rebounds per game last season. Chris Fisher also returns for his senior season after scoring 9.4 points per game with Henry Pwono averaging 5.3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game last season also as a junior. Fisher and Carr led ECU with 24 steals and Fisher topped the team with 74 assists.
Havens takes over the Ada, Okla. program after being an assistant coach at Drury University the past eight seasons before working at the University of Tulsa in an assistant coach and director of basketball operations capacities.

ECU will play No. 13 Midwestern State on Saturday at the SWOSU Classic and also has Tarleton State on its schedule this season.

SOUTHWESTERN OKLAHOMA STATE BULLDOGS
SWOSU is coming off a 12-16 record last season and comes into this season with one returning starter. The Bulldogs finished seventh in the GAC last season. The Bulldogs are also in transition with new head coach Bob Battisti who was previously the head coach at Northwestern Oklahoma State and was an assistant at Oklahoma Christian.

Rod Camphor and Michael Bradley return for their senior seasons in Weatherford with Camphor coming off a 10.5 points, 3.4 rebounds per game junior season. Bradley scored 6.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. SWSOU returns nine players in total from last season who are joined by four transfers and two freshmen.  

The Bulldogs will open their season on Friday against Midwestern State at their home tournament and will also play West Texas A&M and Eastern New Mexico later this season.

UP NEXT: Angelo State will host Arlington Baptist College in its season opener at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 12 before taking on York College at 7 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 16 at the Junell Center.