March 2, 2015
Missouri State Game Notes 
| MVC Tournament Bracket | MVC Tournament Notebook | The Hangout at Union Station | Arch Madness Tickets
| MVC Tournament | Missouri State Bears (11-19, 5-13) | Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Mo. |
| Date | Opening Round: Thursday, March 5 | 6:05 p.m. |
| Location | Scottrade Center (20,948) | Driving Directions | St. Louis, Mo. |
| Tickets | Arch Madness Tickets | Ticket Discounts |
Pregame Events
| The Hangout at Union Station| MVC FanFest at Ballpark Village |
| Fan Information | BearWear | Browser Theme | Visitors Guide | MSU Bookstore | ArchMadness.com |
| Television | FOX Sports Net with Mitch Holtus, Rich Zvosec, Tom Ackerman, Scott Warmann |
| Radio | Missouri State Radio Network with Art Hains and Mike Keltner |
Audio Streaming
| Live Audio Stream  |
MissouriStateBears.com
| Live Stats| Basketball Home Page |
| Connect | @MissouriStBears  | @MSUBearsHoops | Bears on Facebook  |Bears on Instagram  |
All-Time Series
| SIU leads 40-37 | Streak: MSU W 2 in a row | Last Meeting: MSU 52, SIU 46 (1/31/15) |
Up Next
| With a win over SIU, #8 seed MSU would advance to play #1 seed Wichita State at Noon on Friday (March 6) |
- Chris Kendrix (Fr., Willard, Mo.) is 12 points away from becoming the 16th MSU freshman to score 200 points in a season. Fellow Bears Austin Ruder (2013-14) and Gavin Thurman (2012-13) are also on the list. \
- The Bears are 11-2 when shooting a higher field goal percentage than their opponents this season and 10-5 when shooting a higher free throw percentage. Converseley, MSU is 0-17 when opponents shoot a higher FG percentage.
- Austin Ruder (So., Nixa, Mo.) has multiple 3-pointers in four of the Bears' last five games and is notched his fourth career 20-point game on Feb. 25 against Bradley. He averaged 17.0 points per game in two games last week.
- Dorrian Williams (Jr., Oklahoma City, Okla.) needs 8 assists for 300 career which would make him the 16th MSU player to reach that milestone. He has led MSU in assists 49 times in his career and 25 times this season.
- Christian Kirk (Sr., Springfield, Mo.) is MSU's most-experienced player at Arch Madness with 5 previous appearances and 2 starts at Scottrade Center with 26 total points. Austin Ruder is next on the scoring list with 25 points in 2 games.
- The last time MSU beat a team three times in the same season was 2010-11 -- Southern Illinois and Creighton.
- MSU was 4-5 in Missouri Valley Conference games this season in contests decided by 10 points or less.
- Chris Kendrix (Fr., Willard, Mo.) is averaging 12.5 points and 7.0 rebounds over the last four games.
- Over the last half of the Valley season (9 games), Gavin Thurman (Jr., Wichita, Kan.) has scored 8 points or more on 7 occassions with a couple of 6-point efforts and 4 games with 10 or more points.
- Former Saluki players who have recently coached at MSU include Bears head coach Paul Lusk (1992-95), current assistants Derrick Tilmon (1997-2000) and Brad Korn (1999-2004), and former MSU assistants Kent Williams (1999-2003) and Kyle Smithpeters (2004-06). SIU head coach Barry Hinson was 169-117 (.591) in 9 seasons at MSU.
The Bears have won 11 of the last 13 meetings, but still trail the all-time series, 40-37, in a rivalry that dates back to 1957.
The Bears are 5-4 in the MVC Tournament against the Salukis with recent Valley Tournament wins over SIU in 2011 (quarterfinals) and 2013 (first round). The clubs also split four straight semifinal meetings -- 2002-05 -- in addition semifinal meetings in 1993 and 2000 and a quarterfinal matchup in 1994.
In the most-recent meeting between the clubs in Springfield (Jan. 31), the Bears snapped an 7-game losing streak behind 11 points and 6 rebounds from Gavin Thurman to score a 52-46 win. The Bears shot 45.8 percent from the field and out-rebounded the Salukis 33-27. SIU was led by Jordan Caroline and Kyle Smithpeters with 14 points each.
In the Valley season opener for both clubs (Dec. 31) in Carbondale, the Bears led by as many as 16 in the second half before an influx of foul calls got the Salukis back in the game in a 53-50 Missouri State victory. SIU finished 22-for-32 at the line with 20 free throw attempts in the final 20 minutes and a 16-point effort from Anthony Beane. MSU was led by Dorrian Williams with 10 points and Camyn Boone with 8 points and 8 rebounds.
Paul Lusk (Southern Illinois, 1995) is 58-70 (.453) in his fourth season at MSU and 60-93 (.392) in his fifth season overall as a head coach. He is 30-42 in MVC games (21-15 at home, 9-27 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 38-23 in all home games, 17-37 on the road, and 3-10 at neutral sites. Lusk is 7-2 against Southern Illinois, including a 1-0 mark in St. Louis.
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.
THURSDAY ...
FOX Sports Midwest (states of Iowa and Nebraska) -Live at 6 p.m. Central.
Comcast SportsNet Chicago -- Live at 6 p.m. Central.
DirecTV -- Live at 6 p.m. Central on channel 671-1 (FOX Sports Midwest Plus).
AT&T U-Verse -- Live at 6 p.m. Central on channels 747 and 1747 (FOX Sports Midwest Plus).
FOX Sports Midwest (states of Illinois and Missouri, except Kansas City) -Cannot clear the telecast on the main channel due to contractual obligations to St. Louis Blues, but the game will be cleared live at 6 p.m. Central on FOX Sports Midwest Plus -- the channel used by FOX Sports Midwest when it simultaneously shows multiple events. FOX Sports Midwest Plus can be found on Cable America-Maryland Heights and Republic -- Channel 12; Cable America-St. Robert -- Channel 58;Cable One-Joplin -- Channel 78; Cass-Virginia - Channels 8 (SD) and 197 (HD); CenturyLink-Columbia - Channel 749; Charter-Missouri - Channels 75 and 213 (SD) and 826 (HD); Comcast-Illinois - Channel 524 (SD) and 520 (HD); Consolidated-Illinois - 181; Fidelity-Lebanon and Rolla - Channel 68; Fidelity-Nevada - Channel 33; Fidelity-Salem - Channel 74; Fidelity-Sullivan - Channel 72; Fidelity-West Plains - 34; Grafton Technologies-Grafton - Channels 78 (SD) and 790 (HD); Highland Communications-Highland - Channels 51 (SD) and 551 (HD); HomeTel-Illinois - Channels 100-1 (SD) and 196 (HD); HTC Communications - Channels 77 (SD) and 1077 (HD); Madison-Illinois - Channel 26; Mediacom-Columbia/Springfield - Channel 126; Mediacom-Illinois - Channel 22; New Wave-Carlinville, DuQuoin, Greenville, Jerseyville, Litchfield, Newton, Olney, Sparta, Taylorville - Channels 80 (SD) and 208 (HD); New Wave-Anna - Channel 2; New Wave-Missouri - Channels 80; Suddenlink-Boonville - Channel 59; Suddenlink-Branson - Channel 18; Suddenlink-Carthage - Channel 10; Suddenlink-Monett - Channel 2; Suddenlink-Neosho - Channel 61; U.S. Sonet-Salem, Ill. - Channel 97.
FOX Sports Indiana -- Live at 6 p.m. Central.
FOX Sports Kansas City -- Live at 6 p.m. Central.
ESPN3 - Live at 6 p.m. Central outside the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
Dish Network -- Live at 6 p.m. Central on channel 441, 9579 and 412-29 (FOX Sports Midwest Alternate).
2015 MVC Tournament Pairings
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2015 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament
Thursday, March 5 -- Session I
Game 1 -- #8 Missouri State (11-19, 5-13) vs. #9 Southern Illinois (11-20, 4-14), 6:05 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio] {LIVE STATS}
Game 2 -- #7 Drake (9-21, 6-12) vs. #10 Bradley (8-23, 3-15), 8:35 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Friday, March 6 -- Session II
Game 3 -- #1 Wichita State (27-3, 17-1) vs. Winner Game 1, 12:05 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Game 4 -- #4 Illinois State (19-11, 17-7) vs. #5 Evansville (19-11, 9-9), 2:35 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Friday, March 6 -- Session III
Game 5 -- #2 UNI (27-3, 16-2) vs. Winner of Game 2, 6:05 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Game 6 -- #3 Indiana State (15-15, 11-7) #6 Loyola (18-12, 8-10), 8:35 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Saturday, March 7 -- Session IV
Game 7 -- Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4, 1:35 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Game 8 -- Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 6, 4:05 p.m. [MVC TV Network] [WXOS Radio]
Sunday, March 8 -- Session V
Championship -- Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8, 1:05 p.m. [CBS Sports, Westwood One, Sirius/XM Radio] [WXOS Radio]
