Basketball Game Preview: Smithville Tigers vs. Navasota Rattlers

Smithville is 2-8 against Navasota since January of 2017 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Tuesday. The Smithville Tigers will take on the Navasota Rattlers at 5:30 p.m. Each of these teams will be battling to keep a three-game winning streak alive.

If Smithville beats Navasota with 45 points on Tuesday, it's going to be the team's new lucky number: they've won their past two matches with that exact score. Smithville walked away with a 45-34 victory over Caldwell on Friday. Given the Tigers' advantage in MaxPreps' Texas basketball rankings (they are ranked 531st, while the Hornets are ranked 1096th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Meanwhile, Navasota won against Caldwell on Tuesday with 59 points and they decided to stick to that point total again on Friday. Navasota claimed a resounding 59-20 win over Bellville.

Smithville is on a roll lately: they've won six of their last seven games, which provided a nice bump to their 18-8 record this season. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 52.7 points per game. As for Navasota, their victory was their 13th straight on the road dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 18-9.

Smithville suffered a grim 59-33 defeat to Navasota when the teams last played back in December of 2021. Can Smithville avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.