Feb. 8, 2015
Missouri State Game Notes 
| Evansville Game Notes | MVC Weekly Notebook
- The last time MSU played Evansville (Jan. 14), the Bears were 8-8 overall and 2-2 in The Valley. The Bears' 56-54 loss to the Purple Aces was the club's first game without Marcus Marshall, who ranked 2nd in the MVC in scoring.
- Gavin Thurman (Jr., F, Wichita, Kan.) has led the Bears in scoring the last 3 games (11.7 ppg) and has been the team's top rebounder twice in that span (5.7 rpg), also averaging 27.7 minutes per game off the bench.
- Camyn Boone (Jr., Seattle, Wash.) leads all Valley players in field goal percentage (.638) in conference games. He has scored in double figures in three of the last five games, and has converted 37-of-58 shots in Valley games.
- In his first career start Saturday at Wichita, Shawn Roundtree, Jr. (Fr., G, Edwardsville, Ill.) played all 40 minutes, grabbed a career-high 6 rebounds and dished out 2 assists.
- MSU had just 7 scholarship players in uniform for Saturday's game at Wichita, in addition to recently-added walk-on Ben Denbow (Jr., G, Licking, Mo.), who did not play. Denbow was moved to the active roster on Feb. 6 after being with the team just a week as a practice player.
- In his last 8 games -- all starts -- Chris Kendrix (Fr., G/F, Willard, Mo.) is averaging 7.3 points per game while knocking down a team-high 10 3-pointers and snagging 3.8 rebounds per game, 2nd on the club in that span.
- Tyler McCullough (So., C, Fayetteville, Ark.) leads team with 4.8 rebounds per game over the last 5 contests.
- This is MSU's first Tuesday game this season. Last year, the Bears were 3-2 on Tuesdays, including a 64-61 win over
Evansville on Tuesday, Jan. 21 at JQH Arena, - Thurman needs 18 points for 500 in his career (79 games) and 2 points for 300 in career MVC games (46 games).
- Evansville ranks 15th nationally in FG Pct. (.487), 16th in FT Pct. (.748) and 17th in assists (15.9).
The Bears and Aces first met in the NAIA national championship game on March 13, 1959 in Evansville with UE protecting its home floor in an 83-67 win. Since then Missouri State has taken a 33-28 lead in the series, including a 10-17 mark in Evansville and 1-2 mark at the Ford Center.
The Bears swept the season series with Evansville last year, including a 66-54 win at the Ford Center (2/5/14), but lost a nail-biter at JQH Arena earlier this year (1/14/15) with the Aces holding off a late MSU charge with 18 points from Mislav Brzoja. Dorrian Williams led four Bears in double figures with 15 points and 5 assists, while Christian Kirk scored 12 points.
Paul Lusk (Southern Illinois, 1995) is 56-66 (.459) in his fourth season at MSU and 58-89 (.395) in his fifth season overall as a head coach. He is 28-38 in MVC games (19-14 at home, 9-24 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 36-22 in all home games, 17-34 on the road, and 3-10 at neutral sites. Lusk is 3-5 against Evansville, including a 1-2 mark at Ford Center.
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.
Marty Simmons (Evansville, 1987) returns five starters and nine lettermen from a 16-15 club.
The Purple Aces rely heavily on one of the nation's top scorers, D.J. Balentine (Jr., G) who has dropped in 47 3-pointers and is averaging 19.4 points per game while making 74 percent of his free throws and adding 78 assists. UE also gets 12.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game from big man Egidijus Mockevicius (Jr., C) who has made 60.2 percent of his shots. UE is shooting .487 as a team, tops in the MVC.
With just seven scholarship players in uniform, the outmanned and outgunned Missouri State Bears ran into a buzz saw here Saturday night, falling 78-35 to the No. 16-ranked Wichita State Shockers.
Gregg Marshall's club captured its 29th straight home-court victory behind a 17-point effort from Ron Baker and a triple-double by Fred VanVleet who collected 11 assists to go with his 10 points and 10 rebounds. Darius Carter and Shaquille Morris also contributed 10 points for WSU, which snagged 12 steals and 51 rebounds as a unit.
Missouri State was led by Gavin Thurman who posted 9 points and 7 rebounds in front of his hometown, marking the third straight game the junior has led the Bears in point production. Chris Kendrix also posted 8 points, with fellow underclassmen Shawn Roundtree and Tyler McCullough each adding 6 rebounds.
With two starters on the shelf, the injury-plagued Bears finished with season lows in points, field goals (13), field goal percentage (.250) and assists (6). Missouri State's starting lineup included just one returning letterman - sophomore Tyler McCullough - who was also one of three underclassmen in the rotation.
The Bears got their first bucket of the night on a 3-pointer from up-and-coming freshman Kendrix nearly four minutes into the contest, but the home-standing Shockers responded with the game's next 10 points as part of a 14-3 start. Missouri State later cut into that 11-point margin with back-to-back scores from Camyn Boone and Thurman to make it a 14-7 game at the 11:46 mark.
Midway through the opening half, Thurman and Loomis Gerring teamed up to slice into another double-figure deficit and make it a 20-11 contest with just under 8 minutes left in the opening stanza.
But Missouri State, which committed 9 first-half turnovers mostly under duress from the Shocker full-court pressure, went the rest of the half without a field goal. Meanwhile, the Shockers reeled off a 17-2 run to close out the period and lead 37-13 at the break.
It marked MSU's lowest offensive output in a half since Dec. 8, 2012 at Oklahoma State.
The Bears started the second half with some razzle dazzle as Kendrix broke loose for an easy finger roll at the rim to make it 37-15. But Ron Baker scored 8 of Wichita's next 12 points on an impressive 12-0 outburst by the home side, making it a 49-15 game just over three minutes into the final half.
Wichita State would build its lead to as many as 46 from there, and ultimately handed the Springfield squad its worst defeat since a 52-point loss at Nebraska on Jan. 15, 1983.
The Bears finished 13-for-52 from the field, 2-of-14 (.143) from bonus distance and 7-of-11 (.636) at the line with 33 rebounds and 16 turnovers. MSU's 35-point night was its lowest since Feb. 11, 1950.
Wichita State, which suffered its first league loss of the season at UNI and won a narrow road game at Bradley last week, proved its point to the home crowd by firing up 70 shots - the most ever against MSU coach Paul Lusk. The Shockers finished 31-of-70 (.443) overall, 9-of-21 (.429) from the arc and 7-of-10 (.700) at the line with 51 caroms and just 7 turnovers. Twelve different WSU players finished in the scoring column.
Missouri State returns home Sunday at 3 p.m. to take on Northern Iowa at 3 p.m., on ESPNU. It is Hall of Fame weekend at Missouri State with the 2015 Athletics Hall of Fame class recognized at halftime.
