The Missouri State Bears reach the end of a busy stretch of five games in nine days leading up to a short Christmas break as they head for Las Vegas this weekend for the semifinals and finals of the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic. The Bears take on the University of Alabama in Saturday’s semifinal action while Iowa State and Purdue hook up in the second semifinal test. Third place and championship games are Sunday evening. The Bears opened tourney play and got back into the win column with a 64-53 home win over Texas-Pan American Monday night and then turned back visiting Bethune-Cookman in 63-49 in Hammons Student Center Wednesday night after starting their busy holiday slate with a 66-54 setback at Utah Saturday. The game at Utah came after a 10-day break in which the Bears took fall semester final exams.
  The loss at Utah and home wins over UTPA and Bethune-Cookman moved the Bears to 7-3. The Bears played twice a week and a half earlier, losing 70-51 at Arkansas Dec. 3 and beat UNC Wilmington 73-66 at home Dec. 5. Missouri State opened its season with a 57-53 loss at Toledo, rolled past Harding (86-67) and UNC Greensboro (79-52) Nov. 16-17 to win the Price Cutter Classic at Hammons Student Center. The Bears then turned back Saint Louis (60-56) at home Nov. 21, and won at Winthrop (73-69) Nov. 25 before the two-game split to open December.
 
 Last Games: The Bears put together three double-digit scoring runs in the contest but it was the third one that put them over the top in a see-saw affair the first 30 minutes. MSU ran out to a 10-0 lead the first five minutes of the game, only to have Bethune-Cookman battle back for a 16-16 deadlock midway in the half. The Bears immediately punched up 11 straight points for a 27-16 advantage but were outscored by BCU 14-2 over the last seven minutes of the first half and first five minutes of the second half as the Wildcats drew even at 29-29. From a 43-37 lead midway in the second half, Missouri State scored a dozen in a row for an 18-point lead and the Bears’ biggest margin was 20 at 59-39. Forwards Deven Mitchell and Chris Cooks led the Bears with 12 points and nine rebounds each. Dale Lamberth had 11 points and Spencer Laurie collected 10. Cooks added five steals and Dex Manswell came off the Bears’ bench with four points, five boards, three blocked shots and two steals.
 
  The Bears jumped into a 14-2 lead Monday against UT-Pan American, saw the Broncs cut it to five, went back ahead by 12, and had the margin sliced to 26-19 at halftime. The Bears took their biggest lead at 43-30 midway through the second half but UTPA got hot from the free throw line and the Bears cooled off from the stripe and the visitors cut the MSU lead to 50-48. From there, key threes and key defensive plays inched the Bears’ advantage back up and Missouri State hit some free throws down the stretch to win by 11. Deven Mitchell was perfect from the line in eight attempts and had 14 points, five rebounds and three steals. Chris Cooks scored 13, Drew Richards added 12 points with seven boards and five blocks, and Spencer Laurie scored a season-high 12. UTPA dropped to 6-7 for the season.
 Alabama: Like the Bears, Alabama is 7-3 and the Tide comes into the game with three wins in a row, having beaten Nicholls State and then opened the Classic with wins over Wofford and UT-Pan American, with all three games in Tuscaloosa. Alabama losses are to Belmont at home, Texas A&M on the road and Georgetown on a neutral floor. Richard Hendrix leads Alabama with 18.7 points and 10.5 rebounds a game and Alonzo Gee and Mykal Riley are getting 14 points a game each. Alabama was 20-12 last year and finish third in the SEC West with a 7-9 league mark.
 Missouri State is in its 96th season of intercollegiate basketball and the Bears are coming off a 22-11 season which saw them finish third in the Missouri Valley Conference regular season race with a 12-6 mark, reach the semifinals of the State Farm MVC Tourney and play in the National Invitation Tourney. It was the Bears’ third straight NIT appearance. This is the Bears’ third year as Missouri State (previously Southwest Missouri State).
  This week’s four-game schedule concludes a busy Missouri State non-league slate in which the Bears visit five states before Christmas, concluding with the trip to Las Vegas and this weekend’s game in the Orleans Arena. There’s a parallel four-team tourney at Vegas involving Bethune-Cookman, UT-Pan American, Texas Southern and Wofford. The Bears open Missouri Valley Conference play Dec. 30 at defending league champ Southern Illinois and the team’s only remaining non-conference game is a home test in an O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters test Feb. 22 or 23, with the opponent to be announced in early February.
 Hammons Student Center Farewell, JQH here next year: The 2007-08 season is the Bears’ 32nd and final year of basketball in Hammons Student Center. The new $67 million, 11,000-seat JQH Arena is being constructed just east of HSC and will be ready for the opening of the 2008-09 Missouri State Bears and Lady Bears basketball season.
 The Coaches: Barry Hinson (Oklahoma State, ’83) is 159-104 in his ninth year at Missouri State and 195-127 overall in his 11th year as a college head coach. He’s 0-0 vs. UA. Hinson is fifth on the all-time MSU coaching win list, needs five more wins to catch Eddie Matthews for fifth place, and is the sixth Bears’ coach to post 100 wins.
 Mark Gottfried (Alabama, ’87) is 188-111 in his 10th year at Alabama and 256-135 in his 13th year overall as a college head coach. He’s 0-0 vs. MSU.
 Series Record: 0-0, first basketball meeting between Missouri State and Alabama.
 Affiliation: Missouri State is in its 26th year in Division I and 18th in the MVC. The Bears are 495-284 in Div. I and 183-121 in regular season Valley play since 1990. MSU has been second five times and third five times in its best MVC finishes. MSU had eight straight 20-win, postseason tourney teams (1986-93), with three NIT clubs and five NCAA teams in that span. The Bears returned to postseason play in the 1997 NIT, and in 1999 had their first NCAA trip since 1992, advancing to the Sweet 16. The Bears upset Wisconsin and Tennessee and fell to top-ranked Duke in the East regional semifinals. MSU got to the second round of the NIT in 2000 and 2005 and reached the NIT quarterfinals in 1986, 1993 and 2006.
 All-Time: The UNI game 1/11/04 was the 1,400th win in Bears’ basketball history. The 1,300th was 11/18/98 at Missouri and the Bears’ 2,000th game was 1/13/99 vs. Bradley. This is the 96th season of Bear basketball. MSU is 1,479-792 (.651) all-time; 27th among Division I schools in all-time wins and 13th in all-time winning percentage. The Bears have had 76 winning seasons, 15 losing years, four seasons at .500, 26 years with 20 or more wins, and 29 postseason teams. Missouri State first played intercollegiate basketball in 1908-09. This is the 100th year since the Bears first played but there were not teams in the 1911-12, 1912-13, 1943-44 or 1944-45 seasons.
Last year: Missouri State posted its sixth straight winning season in 2006-07 and the Bears’ 22-11 record gave them an average of 20.5 wins a season over the past four years. Missouri State started 4-0, including a 66-64 win over #7 Wisconsin, then lost by three in overtime to unbeaten Oklahoma State in the finals of the South Padre Island Invitational. The Bears raced through their early non-league slate at 8-2, including wins over UW-Milwaukee, UNC-Wilmington, Santa Clara and South Florida. The Bears stumbled at the start of their league slate but righted the ship to finish 12-6, alone in third place. The Bears, after not having beaten Wichita State in four years, completed a three-game sweep over the Shockers by downing WSU in the quarterfinals of the MVC tourney. Missouri State lost to Creighton in the semifinals and then dropped a four-point decision to San Diego State on a late three in the first round of the NIT.
n A-B-C Seniors Shine: The Bears’ three senior co-captains last year were all four-year lettermen and three or four-year starters with well over 100 MSU games each. Blake Ahearn averaged 15.4 points to lead Bear scoring and collect his second straight all-MVC first team nod and selection as MSU Coors Player of the Year. His 1,677 points rank seventh all-time at MSU. He finished third in the nation in free throw accuracy but his four-year .946 figure set a new NCAA career mark. Nathan Bilyeu led rebounding at 5.4 a game and wound up 15th in MSU career rebounding with 628 while finishing 29th in career points with 939. Tyler Chaney earned the Guy Thompson Award for the program and averaged 10.3 points, reached fifth in career three-pointers, and got to 28th in all-time scoring with 957 points.
n League honors for ex-Chiefs: In addition to Ahearn’s all-MVC first team selection last season, Bears’ junior forward Deven Mitchell was named the Valley’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2006-07 and MSU junior guard Spencer Laurie was selected as the Newcomer of the Year. Tyler Chaney drew all-MVC honorable mention and Dale Lamberth joined Mitchell on the all-bench team.
nAhearn to NBA Development League:
Blake Ahearn, the all-time leading free throw shooter in Division I history, has begun his first professional season with the National Basketball Association De-
velopment League Dakota Wizards, Bismarck, N.D.
 Ahearn, a fourth round pick in the 10-round D League draft, joins a Dakota team which is the reigning D League champ. Ahearn scored 24 in the Wizards’ lone exhibition game and is averaging 12.7 points through the team’s first nine (5-4) regular season games with 24 in the most recent game, a loss Saturday. Ahearn is 35-of-36 from the foul line
 Ahearn led MSU in scoring and was an MVC all-league first teamer as a junior and senior. He set school and Valley records for consecutive free throws made with 60 in a row once each in his freshman and sophomore seasons. His .975 free throw percentage (117/120) as a freshman set a new Division I single season percentage mark, and his final figure of .946 (435/460) established a new NCAA career record. Ahearn graduated from MSU in August with a degree in marketing.
 22 straight years: The Missouri State men’s and women’s basketball teams have had notable Division I success, with one or both having advanced to postseason play 22 years in a row. The men’s team played in the NIT in 1986, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2005, 2006 and 2007 and in the NCAA in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992 and 1999. The women’s team was in the NCAA from 1991 through 1996, 1998 through 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2006; in the WNIT 2002 and 2005, winning the 2005 WNIT title.
BruiNotes:
Personnel:MSU has a 14-player roster this season, with seven lettermen and two starters back from last year. Squadman Ryan Jehle is a redshirt freshman. Chris Cooks is a junior transfer from Redlands (Okla.) JC, Wade Knapp is a junior transfer from Dodge City (Kan.) CC, and, of the four true freshmen, Kyle Weems and David Cline are redshirting this season. Guard Tomas Brock, a freshman from Mt. Vernon, Mo., had been participating as a redshirt but has elected to join the Bears’ active roster to add more depth in the backcourt following the injury to Lamont Austin.
nAustin sidelined: Lamont Austin sustained a broken bone in his right foot in the Bears’ practice Dec. 9 and will be out of action for the rest of the 2007-08 season. The injury was diagnosed by X-ray that night. Austin, a freshman guard from Topeka, Kan., played in two of the Bears’ first seven games, seeing a total of 14 minutes of action in the contests at Arkansas and home against UNC Wilmington. He had not scored. Bears’ head coach Barry Hinson indicated that Missouri State would seek a medical hardship for Austin at the end of the year.
nLamberth graduates: Senior forward Dale Lamberth was one of 23 Missouri State student-athletes in a graduating class of 1,264 who received MSU degrees at Fall Semester Commencement exercises Dec. 14 at Hammons Student Center. Lamberth, a recreation and leisure studies major, was with the Bears in Utah when his degree was conferred.
nBears add three prep standouts: A Missouri prepster and two high schoolers from out of state have committed to join the Missouri State basketball program for 2008-09.
  The trio includes Damen Bell-Holter, a 6-foot-9, 240-pound center from Ketchikan (Alaska) High; Ken Holdman, a 6-foot, 170-pound guard from Tulsa (Okla.) East Central High; and Isaiah Rhine, a 6-10, 225-pound center from Versailles (Mo.) High.
  Bell-Holter is entering his third season as a starter for the Ketchikan Kings of Coach Doug Nausid. Ketchikan knocked off Juneau last year in the regional finals to go to the Alaska state tournament and Bell-Holter was a first team all-conference choice in the Alaska Southeast League as the Kings were conference runners-up.
 Holdman is a two-year starter at East Central for Coach Brian Morgan and his team also reached the state tournament in 2007, losing in the state finals to Carl Albert in Class 5A. East Central also won the Green County Conference title and Holdman was a second team all-conference, second team all-district and Oklahoma all-star selection.
  Rhine is also looking to make his senior season his third year as a starter for the Versailles Tigers of coach Kent Chamberlain. Rhine won all-conference, all-district, and all-area laurels as a sophomore and junior and was a Class 3 all-state second team selection last year. He has also played AAU basketball for two summers for the Missouri Titans.
nPrice Cutter History: The Bears’ win in this year’s Price Cutter Classic was MSU’s fifth in a row and 15th in the 21-year history of the event. MSU is 36-6 all-time in Price Cutter play, with 15 titles and six runner-up finishes (1987-90-93-99-01-02). The Bears won the meet five years in a row (1994-98) in their previous longest stretch of titles, and matched that with this year’s classic win (2003-07). Blake Ahearn, Tyler Chaney and Nathan Bilyeu last year joined Ben Kandlbinder (94-98) and Ryan Bettenhausen (95-99) as the only Bears to play on four Price Cutter title teams and Deven Mitchell and Drew Richards joined that select group this year. The selection of Richards to the all-tourney team this year was a repeat for him from last year. Kandlbinder is the only player to be on the all-tourney team four times and Scott Brakebill (99-00-01) was the only other three-time pick until Ahearn (04-05-06) and Bilyeu (04-05-06) last year. Ahearn (04-05), Kandlbinder (94-95) and Danny Moore (96-98) are the only players to win tourney MVP honors twice.
nBalanced Bears: The Bears’ front line of Mitchell, Lamberth and Richards continues to lead the Bears in scoring, rebounding and shooting. After his career-best 25 points vs. UNCW, Mitchell had his average at a career-best 16.7 points and still leads with 15.7 a game, a team-high 6.5 rebounds and is shooting .579 from the floor. Lamberth has an 11.5 scoring figure, a 4.4 board average and a .462 shooting mark, and Richards is getting 9.0 points and 4.3 boards a game with a team-leading .629 shooting figure. The three were all near-unanimous choices to the all-tourney team Nov. 16-17 after the Bears’ 27-point win over UNCG in the title game. The three combined to average 56 points and 18.5 rebounds in the wins over Harding and UNCG and combined to shoot .667 (40/60) among them for the two games. But, they had help. Guards Shane Laurie and Spencer Laurie and Justin Fuehrmeyer were all among the tournament leaders in multiple stat categories with Fuehrmeyer leading the meet in assists. His 12 in the title game vs. UNCG were the most for a Bear since William Fontleroy had a dozen in 1997-98 vs. Illinois State. Spencer Laurie and Fuehrmeyer combined for 21 assists and just three turnovers in the final game.
 The Bears stayed balanced in their win over Saint Louis with eight players getting five or more points with Mitchell, Lamberth and Shane Laurie scoring 10 each while SLU got 54 of its 56 points from just four players.
nMVP Deven: Deven Mitchell had new career highs of 24 points in each game of the Price Cutter, averaged 8.0 rebounds for the weekend, had five steals and five blocked shots and hit .727 (16/22) from the field and .889 (16/18) from the line to dominate all-tourney and Most Valuable Player voting in the meet. Mitchell’s 16 steals in nine games give him 130, moving him to ninth place on the Bears’ career steals list.
nDrew’s hot: After opening the season with a perfect 8/8 shooting night from the field at Toledo (11/10), Drew Richards hit his first two shots vs. Harding (11/16) to reach 10 in a row.Richards came back vs. UNCG (11/17) with another perfect night at 7/7 and hit his first two vs. Saint Louis (11/20) to run that streak to nine in a row before he missed a shot.  Richards’s six blocked shots vs. Harding were his career high, and most for a Bear since Danny Moore had six in two different games as a senior in 1998-99. Drew’s 18 blocks this season give him 110 for his career and fourth place in MSU career blocks. Next ahead is Ricky Johnson at 125, and Danny Moore has the career record at 167
nThrowin’ the "D": The Bears have held five of their first 10 foes below 57 points and no opponent has scored more than 70 with MSU owning a 60.5 defensive average for the young season. Missouri State is holding its combined foes to a .422 field goal percentage.
