GAME NOTES: A pair of struggling teams get together on Thanksgiving, as the Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin tangle with the Prairie View Panthers at Orleans Arena as part of the Las Vegas Invitational.

Both teams will be back in action to conclude the event on Friday, taking on either Austin Peay or Brown, depending on the outcomes of Thursday's games.

Stephen F. Austin has only a single victory to its credit after four games, as the team opened the season with a 74-49 rout of visiting Mississippi College. Since then however, the Lumberjacks have fallen to Northern Iowa (79-77 OT), Xavier (81-63) and Baylor (67-51).

Prairie View has yet to put a tally in the win column, as the squad has dropped its first five games, four of which were blowouts. The Panthers' last outing was on Monday at Memphis, a 77-49 final, in what was the second straight time the team failed to reach 50 points.

SFA owns a 7-2 lead in the all-time series with PVAMU, but the Panthers snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Lumberjacks by winning the last meeting, 53-50, in Eugene, Oregon on Dec. 20, 2011.

Despite their lack of early success, the Lumberjacks aren't totally devoid of talent as both Thomas Walkup and Jacob Parker are draining more than half of their field goal attempts in averaging 15.3 and 15.0 ppg, respectively. Both players also head the team's rebounding effort with a combined 13.1 rpg, SFA sitting almost even with the opposition in terms of rebounding margin for the season (-1.0). As a collective unit, the Lumberjacks are putting up 66.5 ppg while yielding 69.0 ppg. They are being outshot .488 to .411 overall, and .372 to .314 from 3-point range.

Jared Johnson came off the bench to score 16 points, while Walkup had 11 and Parker 10, but those efforts went for naught as SFA lost at Baylor earlier this week. The Lumberjacks converted only 33.3 percent of their total shots, missing 21 of their 26 long-range launches along the way. Conversely, the Bears drained six treys as part of a 43.4 percent shooting effort overall, and they logged a 43-32 rebounding advantage.

Tre Hagood did what he could to keep Prairie View competitive with Memphis on Monday, but his 16-point, four-assist effort failed to make much of a dent as the Panthers lost by 28. John Brisco chipped in 11 points, but the team as a whole shot just 34.5 percent from the floor, which included a horrendous 3- of-18 showing from beyond the arc. The Tigers, who shot 50 percent from the field, dominated the glass (42-23), and outscored PVAMU at the free-throw line (24-6).

The Panthers are averaging only 53 ppg, while shooting just 35.2 percent from the floor, 24.2 percent from long range, and 54.8 percent from the charity stripe. Montrael Scott (15.0 ppg) and Karim York (10.8 ppg, 6.5 rpg), neither of whom played against Memphis, are the only two double-digit scorers at the moment, although Brisco (9.8 ppg) and Hagood (9.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 3.8 apg) are close to joining them.

The Panthers aren't going to go winless on the season, and there are certainly teams on their schedule that will succumb to them at some point. SFA isn't a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination, but the Lumberjacks should have enough to cut down their second opponent here in the early going.