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SMU point guard Zhuric Phelps set for early-season test against Texas A&M

The Aggies are the third-highest rated non-conference team SMU can play this season.

Before the season started, SMU men’s basketball coach Rob Lanier said he wouldn’t put a timetable on his team. It’s Year 1 on the hilltop for Lanier, so he planned to practice patience as he figured out his Mustangs, and they progressively found rhythm on their own.

At the six-game mark, though – ahead of tough road game against 4-2 Texas A&M – it’s become clear that the SMU is seeing a progression out of sophomore point guard Zhuric Phelps.

Phelps leads the Mustangs both in points (18.5 points per game) and assists (17) so far. Last season, he averaged 3.8 points per game in nearly 15 minutes of action per night. Phelps was also named to the American Athletic Conference’s weekly honor roll on Monday. He’s third in the conference in scoring, two spots below former SMU guard Kendric Davis, who’s now at Memphis.

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Phelps is coming off one of his better games. In a 75-50 win over Lamar, he shot 7-of-11 from the field – including 3-of-5 from 3-point range – and also had a team-high four steals and two blocks.

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The last two statistics were particularly encouraging to Lanier.

“Zhuric just defensively took it to another level and I don’t want him to pick and choose when he does that,” Lanier said on SMU’s postgame radio show. “I just want him to play that way, and when you get tired, we’ve got enough guys – we’ll put somebody else in. But attack it like that and be a guy who impacts the game on both ends at a high level, and he can do that.”

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Phelps and SMU will have a challenge on Wednesday against Texas A&M. The Aggies are the third-highest rated non-conference team SMU can play this season, according to KenPom, behind TCU and Utah State, a team the Mustangs could face in Honolulu in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic during Christmas week. Texas A&M also has a strong backcourt led by former Lancaster guard Wade Taylor IV (15.3 points per game) and Tyrece Radford (12.3).

Lanier may not have put a timetable on SMU’s development this season, collectively, but the game against A&M could offer a good barometer for the development of Phelps, specifically.

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