And then there were two. The SMU Mustangs will battle the host team, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, in the championship game of the Diamond Head Classic on Christmas night. The Mustangs have earned wins over Iona and Utah State to get here while Hawaii has taken down Pepperdine and Washington State. Game time for the title tilt is set for 8:30pm EST.
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The SMU Mustangs came into this tournament with four straight losses and a record of 3-7. They seem to have found their comfort zone in Hawaii, however, and have rattled off two straight wins. After downing a high-scoring Iona team with a surprising offensive attack of their own, the Mustangs defense came alive to take down Utah State. They held the nation's sixth ranked scoring offense to just 38% shooting from the field and forced them into 18 turnovers. SMU was led by Zhuric Phelps, who had 19 points in the win and three steals for SMU's unrelenting defense.
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?? : Hawaii
?? : Dec 25th | 7:30 PM CT
?? : Honolulu, Hawaii
?? : Stan Sheriff Center
?? : ESPN 2#PonyUpDallas | @DiamondHeadClsc pic.twitter.com/6GUiLT53PU— SMU Basketball (@SMUBasketball) December 24, 2022
The Mustangs are starting to look more like the team that won 24 games last year and earned a bid into the NIT tournament. Their defense has been aggressive in the two games and they've even found some timely offense for a team that came into this three-game tournament just 259th in the nation in points per game.