Dec. 16, 2014
Missouri State Game Notes 
| Tulsa Game Notes | MVC Weekly Notebook
- Marcus Marshall (Jr., G, St. Paul, Minn.) ranks 15th nationally in scoring (21.0), 13th in 3-point FG percentage (.571), and 12th in free throw percentage (.935). He has scored in double figures all 7 games he has played in 2014-15.
- The last time the Bears matched up with a Frank Haith coached squad was in the 2011 NIT second round in Coral Gables, an 81-72 loss. MSU, which won the MVC that season, led the Miami game 32-26 at the half.
- The Bears are 6-12 all-time against TU in Tulsa. Missouri State's last win at Tulsa came Jan. 31, 1996.
- Austin Ruder (So., G, Nixa, Mo.) is just 3 3-pointers shy of reaching 100 for his career. He would become the 12th MSU player to reach that milestone. Marcus Marshall (89) is just 11 shy of the same milestone.
- Monday's opponent Oral Roberts, which came in averaging 4.3 treys per game, is the only team this season to knock down 10 or more 3-pointers against the Bears.
- MSU is 2-2 this season when leading at halftime and 3-2 when trailing at the midway point. Tulsa (1934-96) still ranks fifth all-time in MVC wins (400). Tubby Smith's Tulsa team won MVC titles in 1994 & 1995.
- Loomis Gerring (Jr., F, Grandview, Mo.) is coming off a team-high 15-point effort at Oral Roberts on Monday. Gerring has started 6 of 9 games for MSU this season (4 in a row) and has reached double figures in scoring in three of those.
- Missouri State has made 80 percent or more of its free throws in three straight games, combining to knock down 43 of 51 (.843) from the stripe in that span. The Bears are 4-0 this season when they have more FT attempts.
- Ten different Missouri State players have scored in double figures already this season. Marshall leads all players with 7 double-figure scoring games, followed by Austin Ruder with 5 and Dorrian Williams (Jr., G, Okla. City) with 4.
The series between the Bears and Golden Hurricane dates back to 1932 with Missouri State holding a 21-18 lead in the rivalry.
Last year, the teams combined to shoot 87 free throws from 63 called fouls in a wild, 96-93 MSU win at JQH Arena in Springfield. Dorrian Williams dropped 20 points in the win, while Marcus Marshall scored 12, and Christian Kirk added 7 points and 5 boards. Tulsa was led by Shaquille Harrison's 21 points, while Rashad Smith tallied 19 in the loss.
MSU has never won in the Reynolds Center, which opened in 1998. MSU's last win at Tulsa came Jan. 31, 1996.
Paul Lusk (Southern Illinois, 1995) is 52-55 (.486) in his fourth season at MSU and 54-78 (.409) 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 25-23 against all non-conference foes (16-7 at JQH Arena, 8-9 away and 1-7 at neutral sites). He is also 33-17 in all home games, 16-28 on the road, and 3-10 at neutral sites. He is 2-1 against the Golden Hurricane (0-1 in Tulsa).
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.
Final Stats | Season Stats |
Loomis Gerring scored four of his team-high 15 points in just over a minute into the second half, including a 19-foot jumper that put Missouri State ahead 37-34. But the flood gates opened from there, and home standing Oral Roberts (4-4) reeled off 19 unanswered points over the next six minutes to help sink the Bears, 80-61, here Monday.
Marcus Marshall added 12 points for MSU (5-4), which committed eight turnovers in the second half, while Bobby Word contributed a game-high 16 off the bench for the Golden Eagles who improved to 3-0 at home this season.
ORU came into the contest averaging just 4.3 3-pointers per game, but Monday was a different story. Scott Sutton's team knocked down 10-of-23 (.435) shots from beyond the arc, including a game-tying bomb by Aaron Young that knotted the game at 37 and start Oral Roberts' decisive run.
Camyn Boone broke the dry spell with a hook shot with 12:15 to go, and Gavin Thurman later helped MSU's efforts with a baseline jumper with 11:38 remaining to make it a 53-41 game at the time. But the Golden Eagles responded with a vengeance, this time dropping four 3-pointers on the Bears over a two-minute span as part of a 16-0 outburst.
When the dust cleared after Word's fourth trey of the night, ORU had built a 69-41 lead with just over nine minutes to play.
Shawn Roundtree, Jr., and Marcus Marshall drained back-to-back 3-pointers for MSU to stop the bleeding and end the home team's second substantial run of the half. But the Bears would get no closer than 19 the rest of the way.
Two nights after shooting 63.2 percent from 3-point range in their win at Southeast Missouri, the Bears made just 4-of-17 (.235) from beyond the arc and were out-rebounded 35-31. MSU was just 8-of-26 from the field in the decisive second half to finish at 39.3 percent for the game.
MSU collected a team-high 6 rebounds from Tyler McCullough, who was celebrating his 20th birthday, while Oklahoma native Dorrian Williams dished out a game-high 6 assists in the loss.
ORU was 28-for-57 (.491) from the field and converted 14-of-18 (.778) at the line with 14 second-chance points and 30 points in the paint. The Golden Eagles also got 15 points from Adrion Webber in reserve and 12 apiece from starters Young, Denell Henderson and Obi Emegano. Henderson also snagged a game-high 8 rebounds for the home side.
In the first half, the Bears led 33-32 at the break with Gerring scoring 11 and Marshall converting 9 in the opening stanza. There were six lead changes, but no more pivotal than a 6-0 run by the visitors in the final 90 seconds with McCullough knocking down a 17-footer to tie the game before Gerring and Williams scored on transition layups to push the Bears up 33-29.
Oral Roberts banked in a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to make it a one-point game at the intermission, their second banked-in trey of the period.
Missouri State led by as many as five before the first media timeout, but runs of 7-0 and 6-1 by the home squad propelled ORU to leads of 11-9 and later 22-18 before the Bears regained control in the final five minutes of the period.
Missouri State returns to JQH Arena for a Saturday afternoon (2:05 p.m.) showdown with Eastern Michigan (8-1). The Bears wrap their non-conference slate on Dec. 22 when they host Oral Roberts at 7:05 p.m., in a rematch of Monday's game in Tulsa.
EMU Game Tickets | ORU Game Tickets
