Feb. 1, 2015
Missouri State Game Notes 
| Loyola Game Notes | MVC Weekly Notebook
- Dorrian Williams (Jr., Oklahoma City, Okla.) eclipsed 100 season assists in the SIU game Saturday, and is just 11 shy of his career-best season total of 112 set last season.
- The Bears are coming off a 45.8-percent shooting clip in their win over SIU. Missouri State is 5-1 this season when it shoots .458 or better from the field, and the Bears have eclipsed 40-percent shooting in four straight games.
- Christian Kirk (Sr., Springfield, Mo.) needs 1 rebound for 200 in career Valley games and 7 rebounds to reach 400 for his career (118 games). He also needs one more dunk for 30 in his career.
- Austin Ruder (So., Nixa, Mo.) needs 6 rebounds to match his 2013-14 total (54) and is 1 shy of his 50th career start.
- Gavin Thurman (Jr., Wichita, Kan.) is coming off team-highs 11-points and 6 rebounds against Southern Illinois. It was the fourth time he has led the club in rebounding in his career and first since Jan. 18, 2014 at UNI (4 rebounds).
- In snapping their seven-game losing streak, the Bears held SIU to just .333 shooting for the game, the sixth opponent MSU has held under 35-percent this season. MSU is now 9-0 this season when shooting a better FG% than its foe.
- Camyn Boone (Jr., Seattle, Wash.) is shotting .617 (29-for-47) in league games, tops among Valley starters.
- Since reaching a peak national ranking of 5th in free throw percentage, the Bears have shot under 60 percent at the line three times in a four-game span. MSU has recorded fewer free throws than its opponents the last 7 games.
- Missouri State has not had a block/charge call go its way in conference play. The last time the Bears drew a charge was Dec. 20 against Eastern Michigan. Its MVC opponents have collected 10 charges in that same 10-game span.
- Loyola ranks 10th nationally in fewest personal fouls per game (15.0) and allows just 60.0 points per game which ranks 37th. LUC is also 22nd nationally in 3-point FG percentage (.397).
The Bears have and Ramblers have played just three times and twice as Valley foes. Loyola won a 1964 matchup in Chicago before the teams renewed the rivalry 50 years later when LUC joined the Valley last season.
The teams split last year's series with the Bears winning the most-recent matchup (and the only meeting ever in Springfield), 72-56. In that game, MSU got 16 points from Christian Kirk, 14 from Keith Pickens and 10 points from Jarmar Gulley while making half its shots. Loyola was led by Tony Nixon wiht 15 points, while Joe Crisman added 14.
Paul Lusk (Southern Illinois, 1995) is 56-64 (.467) in his fourth season at MSU and 58-87 (.400) in his fifth season overall as a head coach. He is 28-36 in MVC games (19-13 at home, 9-23 on the road), 2-3 in MVC Tournament games and 26-25 against all non-conference foes (17-8 at JQH Arena, 8-10 away and 1-7 at neutral sites). He is also 36-21 in all home games, 17-33 on the road, and 3-10 at neutral sites. He is 1-1 against Loyola, including a 1-0 mark at JQH Arena.
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.
Porter Moser (Creighton, 1990) returns four starters and six lettermen from a 10-22 squad and is off to a 13-9 start this season. The Ramblers have lost five straight games and are 4-5 on the road this winter.
Loyola's top two scorers -- Milton Doyle (So., G) and Christian Thomas (Sr., F) are both averaging 11.5 points per game, but have been battling injuries. Junior forward Montel James (9.0 ppg, 4.1 rpg) has picked up the slack for the Ramblers and is coming off a game-high 22 points against Illinois State on Saturday.
Missouri State (9-13, 3-7 MVC) got back on the winning track here Saturday, scoring a 52-46 win over visiting Southern Illinois and snapping a seven-game Missouri Valley Conference skid in the process before 6,324 fans at JQH Arena.
Gavin Thurman scored 11 points and snagged 6 rebounds to lead MSU (9-13, 3-7), while Camyn Boone added 9 points, and Tyler McCullough scored 7 points with 6 boards for the winning side.
The Salukis (9-14, 2-8) were led by sophomore Kyle Smithpeters and freshman Jordan Caroline with 14 points apiece, while Anthony Beane scored 11 points, despite going 3-for-10 from the field.
After a see-saw battle through the first 15 minutes of the game, MSU used a 6-0 run with six minutes to go in the opening half to take a 19-14 lead on a close-range bucket by Thurman. SIU closed its deficit to 21-19 on a pair of jump shots by Caroline, but the Bears rallied before the intermission on a put-back by McCullough and baseline jumper by Roundtree before the horn to lead 23-19 at the midway point.
In the second half, it was Roundtree who scored big points again for the home side, first on a runner to put the Bears up 31-23, and later on a 3-pointer at the 12-minute mark to give Missouri State its first double-digit lead, 37-25.
The Bears would build their lead to as many as 16 points from there as the Salukis went nearly 10 minutes without a field goal, scoring 8-of-10 free throws in that span to maintain any semblance of an offense.
Beane ended the drought for SIU with a 3-pointer with 4:43 to play, but Thurman quickly responded on MSU's next possession with a traditional 3-point play that got the MSU lead back to 14 points, 50-36, just before the four-minute mark.
But with victory in sight, MSU would tighten up down the stretch and went the rest of the night without a field goal, and the Bears converted just 2-of-5 free throws to open the door for Barry Hinson's squad. Southern responded with 10-2 run to close out the contest and make the final score respectable as Caroline scored three times, and Smithpeters drained his second trey of the night in the final minute.
Paul Lusk's Bears shot an even 50 percent in the second half on 12-of-24 shots to finish at 45.8 percent for the game (22-for-48). MSU struggled from beyond the arc again, firing below 30 percent for the fifth time in seven games with a 2-for-15 (.133) effort, while scoring just 6-of-11 (.545) free throws.
MSU did own the rebounding advantage, 33-27 and allowed SIU just 3 offensive caroms on the night. The Bears also committed 13 turnovers with 22 personal fouls - their most since the last meeting against SIU on Dec. 31.
SIU finished 14-for-42 (.333) overall and 4-of-13 (.308) from bonus distance with 11 turnovers. The Salukis got to the line 26 times, 20 in the second half, but converted just 14 for a 53.8-percent effort from the stripe.
The Bears' bench accounted for 29 points - its second-best effort of the year - with McCullough, Thurman, Shawn Roundtree (7 points) and Loomis Gerring (4 points) providing support for a starting unit that combined to go 9-for-26 from the floor. The MSU bench also out-rebounded the starters, 17-14, with Roundtree dishing out a game-high 4 assists in reserve.
MSU started and ended the month of January with victories, but struggled through the seven losses in between that saw the Bears drop three straight home games for just the second time ever at JQH Arena. The victory gave Missouri State its first season sweep over Southern Illinois since 2011-12.
Missouri State travels to Wichita State on Saturday, Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. (ESPN2) before heading to Evansville on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 7:05 p.m.
