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Bears Look for Road Redemption Against Rival Salukis

Bears Look for Road Redemption Against Rival Salukis

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MSU Athletics Communications

GAME 28 - Missouri State Bears (17-10, 7-7 MVC) at Southern Illinois Salukis (17-10, 9-5 MVC)
Date and Time Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018 | 7:00 p.m.
Location SIU Arena (8,339) | Carbondale, Ill.
Tickets SIU Game
Radio KTXR (101.3 FM) (Art Hains, Mike Keltner) | MSU Radio Network | Listen Live
Television FOX Sports Midwest | MVC Television Network (Mitch Holthus, Kevin Lehman) | ESPN3
Series SIU leads 46-37 | Last Meeting: SIU 79, MSU 77 (1/27/18) | Box Score
Live Stats Live Stats
Game Notes Missouri State | Southern Illinois | MVC Notebook | MSU Media Guide
Follow Facebook | Athletics Twitter | Basketball Twitter | Instagram | #MSUBears
Up Next The Bears return to JQH Arena on Sunday, Feb. 18 for a 3 p.m. game against Drake on ESPNU. MSU continues its final home stand on Wednesday, Feb. 21 vs. Bradley | Drake Tickets | Bradley Tickets

Looking to avenge a rare home loss to the Salukis in January, red-hot Missouri State travels to Carbondale Wednesday evening (7 p.m.) to take on Southern Illinois in key MVC road game for the Bears.

Series History
  • The Bears and Salukis first met in 1957 in a rivalry that has seen SIU take a 46-37 lead.  The Bears are 9-25 in Carbondale. SIU has won six straight in the series, including season sweeps the last two years.
  • Last year, the Salukis stole a 75-67 win at JQH Arena (Jan. 7) behind 22 points by Mike Rodriguez and 17 second-chance tallies. The Bears shot 49.1 percent from the field, but couldn't erase an 8-point halftime deficit. Jarred Dixon and Dequon Miller led MSU with 15 points apiece, while Obediah Church and Alize Johnson scored 11 apiece. In the rematch in Carbondale (Jan. 28), Sean O'Brien went 11-for-13 from the field to lead SIU to an 85-84 overtime win. The Bears led by a dozen at the half, but 11-1 and 10-0 runs by SIU led the home team's comeback. O'Brien finished with 24 for SIU, while MSU got 26 points and 4 treys from Alize Johnson, 15 from Dequon Miller and 14 by Jarred Dixon.
  • SIU squeaked out a 79-77 win over MSU this season at JQH Arena (Jan. 27) as Armon Fletcher scored a layup with 7 seconds remaining to spoil a late MSU comeback. The Bears trailed by as many as 13 in the second half. Alize Johnson scored 29 points and tallied 12 rebounds for MSU while Jarrid Rhodes scored 17. SIU broke the JQH Arena record for FG% (30-of-47) at 63.8 percent and was led by Kavion Pippen with 17 points.. Box Score
The Ten Count
  • In Saturday's win over Evansville, Alize Johnson (Sr., Williamsport, Pa.) became the 34th player in program history -- and just the fifth two-year player -- to eclipse 900 career points. Johnson starts the week ranked 8th nationally in rebounding (11.3), 5th in defensive rebounds (8.22) and 4th in double-doubles (17).
  • Over the last four games, Obediah Church (Jr., Springfield, Ill.) is 14-of-20 (.700) from the field and averaging 8.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.3 blocks. Church, who matched his career high with 13 rebounds in Saturday's win over Evansville, also eclipsed 500 career rebounds in the victory.
  • In J.T. Miller's (Sr., Clinton, N.C.) 11 starts this season, the Bears are 9-2 and averaging 74.8 points per game (66.7 when he does not start). He is averaging 12.3 points per game in his last three starts.
  • Led by Church's 22 slams, the Bears have accumulated 59 dunks (2.2 per game) this season. Reggie Scurry (13) and J.T. Miller (11) have helped the Bears post their best dunk total in the last 10 years. Church has 94 career dunks.
  • Jarrid Rhodes (Sr., Palmetto, Fla.) has scored in double figures in six of the last seven ball games and averaging 10.3 points per game in that span.
  • Rhodes is just 12 points away from 500 for his career. He would be the sixth player on the 2017-18 MSU roster to eclipse 500 career points, joining Miller (1,153), Johnson (908), Dixon (739), Church (580) and Kreklow (539).
  • Ryan Kreklow (Jr., Columbia, Mo.) is just 1 three-poiner away from landing in the program's all-time top 10. He has 111 career 3-pointers and would catch Allen Phillips (1998-2000), Dale Lamberth (2005-08) and Dequon Miller (2015-17) for the No. 10 position with one more trey.
  • Mustafa Lawrence (Fr., Newark, N.J.) is averaging 12.0 points over MSU's last 4 games, including three games scoring in double figures. He is also 13-for-24 (.542) from 3-point range in that span.
  • Bears' head coach Paul Lusk scored 1,610 points as a player at Southern Illinois from 1992-95 and played in three NCAA Tournaments for the Salukis. He also served as an assistant coach at SIU for the 2003-04 season. Other former Saluki players who have recently served at Missouri State include assistant coaches Brad Korn (1999-2004), Derrick Tilmon (1997-2000), Kent Williams (1999-2003) and Kyle Smithpeters (2004-06). Current SIU head coach Barry Hinson was 169-117 (.591) in 9 seasons (1999-2008) as head coach of the Bears.
  • Jarred Dixon (Jr., Kansas City, Mo.) has scored 12.8 ppg in 5 previous games against the Salukis with 16 assists.
Coach Paul Lusk
  • Paul Lusk (Southern Illinois, 1995) is 105-116 (.475) in his seventh season at MSU and 107-139 (.435) in his eighth season overall as a head coach.  He is 52-70 in MVC games (35-26 at home, 17-44 on the road), 4-6 in MVC Tournament games and 49-40 against all non-conference foes (32-13 at JQH Arena, 12-15 away and 5-12 at neutral sites). In all games, he is 67-39 at home, 29-59 on the road, and 9-18 at neutral sites. Lusk is 7-8 all-time against SIU, including a 2-4 ledger at SIU Arena.
  • The 46-year-old Lusk took the reins as MSU's 17th head coach on April 1, 2011. He came to Springfield after seven seasons at Purdue (2004-11), including his last three as associate head coach there.  Now in his 17th season in the coaching profession, Lusk has previous assistant coaching stops at Southwestern Illinois (1996-97), Missouri Southern (1999-2002) and Southern Illinois (2003-04) in addition to a one-year head coaching stint at (Div. III) Dubuque (2002-03). Lusk has played or coached in 10 NCAA Tournaments.
  • Lusk finished third in the MVC Coach of the Year voting in 2014 and was a finalist for the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award that same year. He was also named one of the Top 25 high-major assistants by FoxSports.com in 2010, and CollegeSportsMadness.com named him MVC coach of the year in 2012. He is a member of the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame after scoring 2,743 points during a highly-touted prep career at Wesclin High in New Baden, Ill. He went on to play 107 college games at Iowa and Southern Illinois, earning All-MVC second-team honors in 1994 for the Salukis.
 MVC Standings
 
Loyola-Chicago 11-3 21-5
Southern Illinois 9-5 17-10
Illinois State 8-6 14-12
Drake 8-6 14-13
Missouri State 7-7 17-10
Bradley 7-7 17-10
Evansville 6-8 16-11
Indiana State 6-8 11-15
Valparaiso 4-10 13-14
Northern Iowa 4-10 12-14

 
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