Nov. 28, 2014
Missouri State Game Notes 
| Alaska-Anchorage Game Notes | MVC Weekly Notebook
- Missouri State's fourth-year head coach Paul Lusk is one win shy of his 50th victory with the Bears.
- Marcus Marshall (Jr., G, St. Paul, Minn.) missed Wednesday's game against Colorado State with a quad strain and
dropped to 2nd in the Division I rankings in scoring (26.0 ppg) behind Andrew Rowsey of UNC-Asheville (26.6). - Marshall, who has missed 23 games in his young career due to injuries, also ranks 4th nationally in both 3-point field goals per game (4.33) and 3-point field goal accuracy (.722) making 13 of 18 shots beyond the arc so far this season.
- In its history, Missouri State has played two games at UAA, losing on back-to-back nights to the Seawolves, Dec. 5-6, 1980 during the Bears' second-to-last season at the Division II level. The Bears are 1-5 all-time in Alaska.
- Through just four games this season, nine different Missouri State players have scored in double figures.
Dorrian Williams (Jr., G, Oklahoma City, Okla.) has started the last 20 games in a row for the Bears and is coming
off a career-high 7-rebound game vs. Colorado St. in which he led MSU in scoring (16) for the fifth time in his career. - Missouri State has 8 players averaging at least 5.0 points per game and 12 players averaging 10.0 minutes per game.
- The Bears are 27-6 over the last three seasons when they have more free throw attempts than their opponents. In
its back-to-back losses, MSU has attempted 41 free throws, compared to 73 by Texas Tech & Colorado State. - The Bears are gunning for their 1600th all-time win today. Playing in their 103rd season, Missouri State stands at
1599-909 (.638) all-time which ranks 29th among all Division I programs by wins and 22nd by percentage. - Over the last four seasons, only four Division I programs have committed fewer turnovers than the Bears (10.50).
Alaska-Anchorage has won all three previous meetings, including two wins over the Bears in Anchorage, Dec. 5-6, 1980. The Seawolves then beat MSU in Hammons Student Center, 71-67 on Dec. 31, 1981.
Paul Lusk (Southern Illinois, 1995) is 49-53 (.480) in his fourth season at MSU and 51-76 (.402) in his fifth season overall as a head coach. He is 25-29 in MVC games (17-10 at home, 8-19 on the road), 2-3 in MVC Tournament games and 23-21 against all non-conference foes (15-7 at JQH Arena, 6-8 away and 1-6 at neutral sites). He is also 32-17 in all home games, 14-27 on the road, and 3-9 at neutral sites. He has never coached against Alaska-Anchorage.
The 43-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 16th 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.
Last season, Lusk helped engineer the eighth-best turnaround in the Division I ranks as the Bears finished 20-13 and made an appearance in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. 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.
Dorrian Williams scored 16 points and snagged a career-high 7 rebounds, but the Bears could not overcome the efforts of Colorado State's J.J. Avila who posted 21 points and 11 rebounds in a 76-61 Rams win in the first round of the GCI Great Alaska Shootout.
Avila led all players with 21 points and 11 rebounds with 4 assists and a 7-for-14 shooting day. John Gillon added 20 points for the Rams, who made 28-of-33 (.848) free throws.
The Bears, who were playing without the services of the nation's leading scorer at the time, Marcus Marshall (26.0 ppg), scored more field goals than the larger CSU team. MSU made 21-of-56 (.375) shots on the night, but struggled to get to the foul line where its Mountain West opponent made 9 more free throws than Missouri State attempted.
Down by 10 at the intermission, Paul Lusk's Bears stormed out of the gates to start the second period as Austin Ruder tossed a cross-court alley-oop to Chris Kendrix before Williams made it a five-point game just over a minute into the second stanza with his first 3-pointer of the night.
Colorado State answered with a 3-pointer by Daniel Bejarano on the Rams' next possession after the MSU defense guarded the shot clock down to 2 seconds. Dantiel Daniels added a layup a minute later to push CSU back ahead by double figures, 39-29.
The Bears cut it to six with a Williams jumper and a pair of free throws from Kendrix before the first media timeout of the second period. Avila scored a pair of free throws out of the timeout before Shawn Roundtree knocked down a free throw, and Austin Ruder dropped in a 14-footer to draw Missouri State back within 36-31 at the 14:16 mark.
Later, an Avila offensive rebound and put-back extended the Colorado State lead to 40-31 around the 13-minute mark, but Tyler McCullough's pair of free throws and a transition layup by Williams once again got MSU within 5.
The turning point came on the 12-minute mark when Avila led a 9-2 Rams run over a 3-minute span capped by a 3-pointer by Joe DeCiman to make it 50-37.
From there, CSU made 13-of-14 free throws and led by as many as 20 in the deciding minutes before 3-pointers by Roundtree and Kendrix preceded a last-second Kendrix dunk to make it a 15-point defeat for the Bears.
Missouri State will play either Rice or Washington State on Saturday in the 4th/6th place game (5 p.m., Central) or the 7th/8th place game (3 p.m., Central) at the Alaska Airlines Center.
