The Missouri State Bears come to the end of their 2007-08 home season and conclude their 32-year stay in John Q. Hammons Student Center when they play host to the 20th-ranked and newly-crowned 2008 Missouri Valley Conference regular season champion Drake Bulldogs in MVC action Tuesday night in Hammons. Missouri State closes its MVC and regular season schedules on the road Saturday night when the Bears journey to Terre Haute, Ind., to take on the Indiana State Sycamores.

 Tuesday will also be the final home appearance for the Bears’ five 2007-08 senior co-captains, who will be recognized with their families briefly before the contest.

  Next up after the regular season ends will be the 2008 State Farm MVC Tournament at Scottrade Center in St. Louis Mar. 6-9. The MVC tourney winner will receive the league’s automatic bid into the 2008 NCAA Basketball Tournament.

  In Valley play, the Bears are 6-10 and are assured of their first losing league record in seven years. The Bears are two games out of sixth and would have to get to that spot to avoid an opening-round game in the MVC tourney. The Bears are back within a game of the .500 mark overall (14-15) after a 90-76 non-conference win over Central Michigan at Hammons Saturday in the Bears’ O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters matchup.

  The Bears opened MVC play at SIU and lost 79-71, came home for three straight and beat Bradley 91-80, lost to Creighton 50-49 and beat Wichita State 71-47, lost at Drake 65-54, beat Indiana State at home 65-44, lost at UNI 70-55, beat SIU 63-62, lost at Evansville 84-65, lost 70-62 in OT at Wichita State, lost at home to Illinois State 64-63, lost at Bradley 83-71, beat UNI 71-54, lost at Illinois State 69-57, beat Evansville 76-38 and lost 88-67 last Tuesday at Creighton before the non-league game Saturday vs. Central Michigan.

  The Bears began Valley play after six busy weeks of non-league action. The Bears played right up to a short Christmas break when they split four games in the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic, beating Texas-Pan American 64-53 (12/17) and Bethune-Cookman 63-49 at home (12/19) before losing to Alabama 81-73 (12/22) in the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas in the semifinals and falling to Purdue 72-70 (12/23) in the third-place game. Coupled with a 66-54 loss at Utah (12/15), the Bears had five games in nine days right after fall semester final exams. The Bears played twice a week and a half before Utah, losing 70-51 at Arkansas (12/3) and beat UNC Wilmington 73-66 at home (12/5). MSU 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. The win over Central Michigan moved the Bears to 8-5 in non-league play for the season.

 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).

 The Coaches: Barry Hinson (Oklahoma State, ’83) is 166-116 in his ninth season at MSU and 202-139 in his 11th year overall as a college head coach. He’s 14-4 vs. DU. Hinson is fourth on the all-time MSU coaching win list and the sixth MSU head coach to post 100 wins with the Bears.

 Keno Davis (Iowa, ’95) is 24-3 in his first year at Drake and overall as a college head coach. He is 1-0 vs. Missouri State.

 Series Record: Missouri State leads, 28-8. The Bears hadn’t lost to Drake in six seasons and had a string of 12 straight wins over the Bulldogs snapped Jan. 12 in a 65-54 loss to DU in Des Moines. The Bears’ three losses in four meetings to Drake in 2000-02 came after another string of 10 straight Bears’ wins over the Bulldogs. Drake is 1-15 all-time in Hammons Student Center.

 Last Game: The Missouri State Bears and Central Michigan Chippewas hooked up in a battle royal Saturday night and the Bears made the most of their numerous trips to the foul line to come away with a 90-76 non-conference victory in an O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters game in Hammons Student Center.

  The victory, coming in the next-to-last game in the 32-year history of Hammons, pushed the Bears to 14-15 on the season, including a 13-2 record at home for the year.

  A highlight of the evening was the halftime retirement by Missouri State of jersey No. 32 of Daryel Garrison, the school’s all-time career scoring leader. Garrison had 1,975 points in his 1971-75 Bears’ career, played exclusively before the three-point field goal. Garrison was a 6-foot-3 guard-forward.

  Central Michigan was whistled for 31 personal fouls in the game--one of them intentional--to go with three technical fouls and the Bears shot a season-high 43 free throws on the night, making 33 of them.

  The final score was the biggest margin of the night as the Bears led virtually throughout but couldn’t ever pull away until a long stretch of free throws at the end produced the final 14-point win. CMU dropped to 11-15.

  Dale Lamberth hit 9-of-12 free throws and finished with a game-high 25 points while senior forward running mate Deven Mitchell was perfect in 11 free throw attempts and netted 23 points. Justin Fuehrmeyer hit all six of his charity tosses and all three of his three-point tries and added 17 points.

  The Bears had a 30-22 rebound margin in the contest but CMU rained down 11 three-pointers as they battled to stay in the game until the closing minutes. Giordan Watson led a parade of four Chippewas in double figures in scoring as he collected 17 for CMU.

  Missouri State shot well in the contest from the field, hitting .591 (26/44) when they weren’t put onto the foul line. Central Michigan almost kept pace, hitting .500 (29/58), but only got to the line for 10 free throw tries in the game.

 Drake: The Drake Bulldogs are among the biggest stories in Division I basketball this season as they’ve claimed their first Missouri Valley Conference title since 1971, their first winning league record since 1986, and, after 20 straight losing years were followed by a 17-15 record last year, the Bulldogs have exploded to a 24-3 mark to make first-year head coach Keno Davis a strong contender for national coaching honors. Drake suffered its second league loss last week in a game at Bradley but came back for a 71-64 road win at No. 8 Butler Saturday in BracketBusters action. Drake lost to St. Mary’s in the second game of its season and then ran off a school record 21-game winning streak before losing at Southern Illinois. Drake is within two wins of the school record of 26, accomplished by the Bulldogs’ NCAA Final Four team in 1968-69. Drake is No. 11 in this week’s Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).

 MVC BracketBusters games saw Valley teams fashion a bright 8-2 record, including a 5-0 log in televised games. Valley teams were 4-1 both home and away. Those results moved this year’s Valley record against non-conference foes to 78-40 (.661) which is the fifth best winning percentage on record within the league. Weekend results for MVC teams:

Northern Arizona 85, Wichita State 75 (at NAU)

Creighton 65, Oral Roberts 64 (at ORU)

Southern Illinois 74, Nevada 49 (at SIU)

#16 Drake 71, #8 Butler 64 (at BU)

Indiana State 79, Murray State 62 (at MSU)

Illinois-Chicago 70, UNI 58 (at UNI)

Evansville 63, Eastern Illinois 55 (at EIU)

Missouri State 90, Central Michigan 76 (at MSU)

Bradley 84, Milwaukee 72 (at BU)

Illinois State 54, Wright State 46 (at ISU)

  The Bears’ win over Central Michigan moved Missouri State to 2-3 all-time in its five BracketBusters games. The Bears are, however, 4-0 in games played against the same schools in return matches the following seasons.

  This week’s 20th-ranked Drake team is the second-highest ranked team on record to play in Hammons Student Center in the building’s history. Purdue was ranked 15th when they played in Hammons and clipped the Bears 48-45 in December, 1992. Drake was 16th in the rankings prior to last week and dropped four notches despite the win at #8 Butler due to the home loss to Bradley that is Drake’s only home loss of the season.

 Jan. 12 at Drake: The Bears used most of the second half erasing an 11-point Drake scoring advantage to start the half, and, after the Bears had finally pulled even, let Drake put together an 11-0 run to end the game, resulting in a 65-54 MVC win for the league-leading Bulldogs in Des Moines. It was a school record 13th victory in a row for Drake as the Bulldogs, picked for ninth in the Valley preseason poll, climbed to 14-1 for the year.

  The Valley’s leading three-point shooting team, Drake buried five of its first six treys to start the second half as the ’Dogs quickly overcame a 30-28 Missouri State halftime edge. The Bulldogs built a 10-point lead at 46-36 before the Bears started back. For the second game in a row, Dale Lamberth came off the bench and fired the MSU attack. He scored 11 of the Bears’ next 15 points, including a three-point play with 4:55 left to finally get Missouri State even at 51-51.

  Drake’s Klayton Korver answered with a long three-pointer eight seconds later but the Bears’ Spencer Laurie fired in a trey to knot the game at 54-54 with 4:18 to play. The Bears did not score again as they missed their last 10 shots from the field while Drake was converting two layups and seven free throws for its double-digit final margin.

  Drake hit two early threes and jumped out to a 10-4 edge before Deven Mitchell warmed up and brought MSU back even at 10-10. The lead changed hands four times before the Bears broke from a 21-21 deadlock for a 28-21 lead before the Bulldogs closed to within two at the intermission.

  The Drake win was the Bulldogs’ first over Missouri State in five years and ended a 10-game losing streak to the Bears. Drake moved to 5-0 atop the Valley while dropping MSU to 2-3 in conference play. The Bears dropped their seventh game in eight starts away from Hammons and fell to 9-8 for the season.

  The Bulldogs’ second half long-range surge of .462 (6/13) came after DU had hit just .267 (4/15) threes the first half. Missouri State cashed in just 2-of-9 from long range the first half but connected on just one-of-11 after the break. The Bears hit all seven of their free throws at Drake after a perfect 10-of-10 from the foul line in last Tuesday’s home win over Wichita State. It marked the first time since Jan. 21-26, 1985, vs. Wisconsin-Green Bay and Cleveland State that a Missouri State team put two perfect free throw shooting games back-to-back.

 The Bears’ two-point halftime lead was sparked by an 18-10 intermission rebound margin, but the Bulldogs stormed the boards the second half and outrebounded MSU for the night, 31-29. Korver, Jonathan Cox and Leonard Houston combined for nine of Drake’s 10 three-pointers in the game as Korver finished with 19 points while Houston got 16 and Cox added 13. Lamberth led the Bears with 19 and Mitchell scored 10.

 

 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.

 Affiliation: Missouri State is in its 26th year in Division I and 18th in the MVC. The Bears are 500-296 in Div. I and 188-130 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 1,484-803 (.649) all-time; 27th among Division I schools in wins and 13th in all-time win percentage. The Bears have had 76 winning seasons, 15 losing years, four .500 seasons, 26 years with 20 or more wins, and 29 postseason teams. Missouri State first played basketball in 1908-09. This is the 100th year since the Bears first played but there were no teams in 1911-12, 1912-13, 1943-44 or 1944-45.

nAhearn to NBA Development League:

Blake Ahearn, the all-time leading free throw shooter in Division I history, is in his first pro season with the National Basketball Association Development League Dakota Wizards, the reigning D League champs.

  Ahearn, a fourth round D League draft pick, is averaging 16.4 for the team’s first 34 (19-15) games and is at a league-leading .952 (138/145) from the foul line. He got his first two starts Feb. 1-2 and had team-high and Ahearn season-best point totals of 27 and 26 in the two outings, then came back with 38 points and seven assists in his next game. Ahearn has 13 20-point games and he’s averaging 27 points a game in his eight games as a starter. In those eight games, he’s hiked his scoring average from 13.1 to 16.4 points a contest.

  Ahearn led MSU in scoring and was an all-MVC first teamer as a junior and senior. He set school and Valley records for consecutive free throws with 60 in a row once each as a freshman and sophomore. His .975 FT work (117/120) as a freshman set a 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-man squad, with seven lettermen and two starters 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 three true freshmen, Kyle Weems and David Cline are redshirts. Transfer Will Creekmore came to MSU in December and will be eligible in December of 2008 (see below).

nJehle out: Ryan Jehle suffered a broken scaphoid navicular bone in his right wrist at Evansville (1/26). He’s out the rest of the season. Drew Richards missed eight games with mononucleosis and returned at Bradley, and has had four starts in his five games back.

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.

nMVP Deven: Deven Mitchell had new career highs of 24 points in the first game of the Price Cutter Classic and then matched that total the second night. He 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-tournament selection and Most Valuable Player voting in the meet.

nMakin’ the freebies: The Bears hit all seven of their free throws at Drake (1/12) after a perfect 10-of-10 from the foul line vs. Wichita State (1/8). It marked the first time since Jan. 21-26, 1985, vs. UWGB and Cleveland State that a Bears’ team put two perfect free throw shooting games back-to-back.

nFinal Night Crowd: The final night crowd for the Bears’ last game in McDonald Arena in 1976 was a Standing Room Only throng but McDonald only held 3,288 on its best night. A big turnout is anticipated Tuesday for the HSC finale vs. Drake, and it would take slightly over 9,000 for the crowd to reach the all-time Hammons top 20 list for home crowds. The Bears’ top crowds in Hammons:

 

1.9,229, 03/17/86, MSU vs. Marquette (NIT)

2.9,219, 02/25/89, MSU vs. Cleveland State

3.9,170, 03/05/88, MSU vs. Wisconsin-Green Bay

4.9,162, 02/16/87, MSU vs. Cleveland State

5.9,157, 02/28/87, MSU vs. Illinois-Chicago

6.9,154, 01/23/88, MSU vs. Cleveland State

7.9,145, 12/22/92, MSU vs. Purdue

8.9,129, 02/20/88, MSU vs. Eastern Illinois

9.9,120, 02/29/92, MSU vs. Southern Illinois

10. 9,119, 02/25/06, MSU vs. Creighton

11.9,114, 12/19/98, MSU vs. Texas Christian

12.9,108, 01/02/93, MSU vs. Saint Louis

13.9,104, 01/31/87, MSU vs. Valparaiso

14.9,090, 02/22/97, MSU vs. Wichita State

15.9,083 02/12/03, MSU vs. Creighton

16.9,071, 02/16/91, MSU vs. Bradley

17.9,057, 02/10/90, MSU vs. Illinois-Chicago

18.9,051, 02/04/89, MSU vs. Wisconsin-Green Bay

19.9,042, 12/22/86, MSU vs. Arkansas

 9,042, 02/08/03, MSU vs. Southern Illinois

21.9,022, 03/07/87, MSU vs. Cleveland State

nNo HSC clean slate: Losses to Creighton and Illinois State, each by one point, are, the Bears’ only home defeats of the season but ended their last hope for a perfect season in HSC in what is their final year before moving to JQH in 2008-09. The Bears are 13-2 at home. Missouri State has had six of 32 seasons in Hammons with just one loss--the most recent in 1996-97--and the Bears are bidding to make this their seventh HSC campaign with just two setbacks. Missouri State has had 31 winning home seasons in HSC and one year at .500.

nDeven at the line: Deven Mitchell has made big improvement at the foul line over his MSU career, hiking his season figure more than 50 percentage points each year at MSU. Mitchell hit 24 in a row in 2006-07, 12th best string for Missouri State and one of only three streaks on the top dozen for anyone other than all-time NCAA FT accuracy leader Blake Ahearn. Mitchell made 18 in a row over five games (Dec. 3-23) before he missed two (of 13) vs. PU. He hit 11-of-11 at SIU (12/30) and 9-of-9 vs. Bradley (1/2) and his first two vs. Creighton (1/2) for 27 in a row before a miss, but was another perfect 11-of-11 from the line Feb. 23 vs. Central Michigan. Mitchell is still the Bears’ runaway leader from the line this season at .897, is also the MVC leader, and, equally important, he’s easily the Bears’ volume leader for FT attempts, having made more than twice as many throws as any other player on the team. He’s worked his way into the season and career top 10 in free throw percentage. He saw his most recent string of 17 in a row end with a miss vs. UNI (2/9). (listings attached). Mitchell’s yearly MSU free throw stats:

Year FTM FTA FT%

2003-04 34 51 .667

2004-05 33 46 .717

2006-07 109 135 .807

2007-08 140 156 .897

n#200 for Coach B: Coach Barry Hinson got his 200th career win as a college basketball head coach as his Bears ran past the UNI Panthers, 71-54 Feb. 9 at Hammons. Hinson also earned his 164th win as MSU head coach to move into a tie with Eddie Matthews (1953-64) for fourth place on the all-time coaching win list at Missouri State. Hinson is in his ninth season as the Bears’ head mentor. The Bears’ victory snapped a four-game losing streak for MSU. Missouri State took charge of the game midway through the first half, held a nine-point lead at halftime and went in front by as many as 24 midway through the second period. Deven Mitchell tossed in two free throws at the 11:38 mark of the second half to become the 27th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point plateau. He finished with 13 points for the game and 1,004 for his 120-game MSU career. The Bears moved to 11-2 at home and snapped a string of three straight home setbacks to UNI. MSU drained nine of 18 three-point tries on the night. Dale Lamberth led scorers with 20 points for the Bears and Justin Fuehrmeyer added 11 points and eight assists. Drew Richards, making his first start in 10 games after being sidelined by illness, had five points and a season-best eight rebounds for the Bears.

nClimbing the Charts: Four Bears are moving up MSU career stat charts. Deven Mitchell and Drew Richards are the 30th and 31st Bears with 100 or more games. Mitchell’s at 124 with Richards at 114. Mitchell became the 27th Bear with 1,000 points with his two free throws at the 11:38 mark of the second half vs. UNI. He’s at 1,066 and is fourth in steals (160). Mitchell is the 29th player with 500 career rebounds and now the 14th player with 1,000 points and 500 rebounds, and he needs 14 more points to become the ninth player among the Bears’ all-time top 20 in both career scoring and rebounding. Mitchell is 20th in rebounding (555). Drew Richards is fourth in blocked shots (123). Dale Lamberth is seventh in career treys (107) and Spencer Laurie is 11th (89).

nThe Dextroyer: Dex Manswell only played 12 games and 43 minutes last year and was averaging just 7.3 minutes a game through 14 games this year when Drew Richards was idled with mono. Manswell has started eight of the Bears’ last 14 games and has averaged 17.3 minutes, 4.5 rebounds, 3.4 points and 1.5 blocks a game in that span. He’s shooting .540 from the field, has hit his last three free throws and has blocked 11 shots in his last six games.