The Missouri State basketball Bears will host the Winthrop University Eagles in Hammons Student Center on Friday, Feb. 16, in an O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters game. Game time is 6:05 p.m., and the game will be televised nationally, with specific telecast information to be announced next week.
The Eagles, coached by Gregg Marshall, are members of the Big South Conference and currently lead the Big South with a 7-0 league mark. Winthrop is 17-4 overall, 8-0 at home, 8-3 away and 1-1 on neutral sites.
The only common opponent this season for Missouri State and Winthrop is second-ranked Wisconsin. The Bears handed the Badgers their only loss of the campaign in a 66-64 semifinal game in the South Padre Island Invitational Nov. 24 in Texas. Winthrop dropped an 82-79 overtime decision to the Badgers in Madison’s Kohl Center Dec. 4. The Eagles’ other setbacks this season have been to North Carolina on a neutral site in the preseason NIT, at Maryland and at Texas A&M.
Missouri State and Winthrop have never met in basketball and the Bears have never played any other Big South schools, which include High Point, Coastal Carolina, Charleston Southern, Radford, VMI, UNC-Asheville and Liberty.
Winthrop has been the showcase program in the Big South for most of a decade. Marshall is in his ninth year with the Eagles and owns a 182-82 record in that time. Winthrop has advanced to the NCAA Tournament six of the past eight seasons, including in 2005 with a 27-6 record and in 2006 with a 23-8 record. Marshall has guided Winthrop to six Big South Conference titles.
Winthrop got in additional preparation for the current campaign in May of 2006 when the Eagles went on a 14-day trip to Australia and New Zealand and won four of six games played during that excursion. The Eagles’ 6-10 senior center Craig Bradshaw is from Wellington, New Zealand, and is a member of the New Zealand National Team which played in the FIBA World Championships in the summer of 2006.
The BracketBusters series is in its fifth year and Missouri State is in the event for the fourth time. Missouri State lost in the 2004 game at Miami (Ohio) University, lost in the 2005 game at home to Oral Roberts University and won in the 2006 game at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The series for each pairing also features a return game the following season, a game that will send the Bears to face the Eagles in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 2007-08. The Bears thus far are 3-0 in BracketBusters return games, beating Miami in 2004, Oral Roberts in 2005 and Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2006.
Missouri State is currently 15-7 in the Bears’ eighth season under head coach Barry Hinson. The Bears are 6-5 in the Missouri Valley Conference and are tied for fourth in the league. The Bears have two road MVC games this week, playing at Drake Wednesday (Jan. 31) and at Indiana State (Feb. 3).
