Basketball Bears Open New Season Tuesday at The Q

GAME 1 - Missouri State Bears (0-0) vs. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (0-0)
Date and Time	Tuesday, November 6, 2018, 7:02 p.m.
Location	JQH Arena (11,000) \| Springfield, Mo.
Tickets	ORU Game \| Missouri State students admitted free with BearPass ID
Radio	KTXR (101.3 FM) (Art Hains, Mike Keltner) \| MSU Radio Network \| Listen Live
Television	ESPN3 (Tom Ladd, Kelby Stuckey) \| Watch
Series	Series tied, 8-8 \| Last Meeting: ORU 73, MSU 56 (12/10/18) \| Box Score
Live Stats	Live Stats
Game Notes	Missouri State \| Oral Roberts \| MVC Notebook \| MSU Media Guide
Follow	Facebook \| Athletics Twitter \| Basketball Twitter \| Instagram \| #MSUBears
Promotions	Pack the Q \| Tickets
Up Next	The Bears play three home games this week, with upcoming games against Robert Morris on Friday at 7 p.m. and Stetson on Sunday at 3 p.m. \| RMU Tickets \| Stetson Tickets

Missouri State kicks off the 2018-19 season Tuesday at JQH Arena when the Bears host Oral Roberts at 7 p.m. on "Pack the Q" Night.

The Ten Count

The Dana Ford era at Missouri State officially gets underway tonight. Ford, who spent the last four seasons as head coach at Tennessee State University, was announced as MSU's 18th men's basketball head coach on March 22, 2018. Ford is 4-0 in home openers as a head coach and 3-1 in season openers.
Since moving to the NCAA Division I ranks in 1982-83, the Bears are 35-1 in home openers, including 15 in a row and all 10 home openers at JQH Arena.
In last week's exhibition win over Evangel University, all 10 Bears in uniform landed in the scoring and rebound columns. A pair of freshmen -- Szymon Wojcik (16 points) and Darian Scott (14 points) -- scored in double figures, along with senior Jarred Dixon who dropped in 15 points against the cross-town foes.
Missouri State is 102-44 (.700) over the last nine seasons at JQH Arena. The Bears are 4-1 against Oral Roberts all-time at "The Q" and 5-2 in all home games against the Golden Eagles.
Jarred Dixon (Kansas City, Mo.) enters his senior season needing just 175 points to reach 1,000 for his career. MSU has had 28 1,000-point scorers in its proud history, but none since Kyle Weems reached the milestone in 2011. Last season, graduate transfer J.T. Miller, who scored 930 points in three-plus seasons at Howard University, eclipsed 1,000 points in a Bears uniform.
Obediah Church (Sr., Springfield, Ill.) is Missouri State's career leader in blocked shots (184) and is a two-time Missouri Valley Conference All-Defensive Team selection (2017 and 2018). Church has played in 95 career games (89 starts) and has 102 dunks.
TheAthletic.com named Bears' head coach Dana Ford to its list of 30 "up and coming coaches to keep an eye on" during its 2018-19 preseason basketball coverage.
Ryan Kreklow (Sr., Columbia, Mo.) has 115 career 3-pointers, which ranks 9th on the program's career list. He has knocked down a triple in three straight games and has 93 career games under his belt with the Bears.
Missouri State recorded 9 dunks in its lone exhibition game last Tuesday against Evangel University with Darian Scott tallying 4, Szymon Wojcik 3, Kabir Mohammed 1 and Jan Wojcik 1.
Graduate transfer Josh Webster (St. Louis, Mo.), who played last season at Texas Tech, was a Great Lakes Valley Conference All-Defensive Team selection in 2016 as a sophomore at (Division II) Missouri-St. Louis..

Coach Dana Ford

Dana Ford (Illinois State, 2006) is making his Missouri State debut tonight. He was introduced as Missouri State's 18th men's basketball coach on March 22, 2018 after coaching the previous four seasons at Tennessee State. The native of Tamms, Illinois was 57-65 (.467) at Tennessee State, including a 52-39 ledger in his last three seasons in Nashville.
Ford, 33, was awarded the Ben Jobe Award in 2016 as the nation's top Division I minority coach. That same year, he was named Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year and NABC District 19 Coach of the Year after engineering one of the biggest turnarounds in NCAA history, swaying Tennessee State from a 5-26 record in his first season to a 20-11 mark in 2015-16.
He coached five All-OVC players in addition to two players recognized on the OVC All-Newcomer Team. Under his leadership, Tennessee State also doubled its home attendance average and twice earned votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll during the 2016-17 season.
Ford is 4-0 in home openers in his career and 3-1 in season openers, losing just the 2017-18 season opener at Kansas while at Tennessee State. He has never coached against Oral Roberts.
TheAthletic.com named Bears' head coach Dana Ford to its list of 30 "up and coming coaches to keep an eye on" during its 2018-19 preseason basketball coverage.

Series History

The series between the Bears and Oral Roberts dates back to 1981 with the teams splitting the first 16 matchups, 8-8. The Bears have won two of the last the last three meetings and three of the last five overall. MSU is also 4-1 all-time at JQH Arena against ORU and 5-2 in all home games.
Last year in Tulsa (Dec. 10, 2017), Oral Roberts hit four 3-pointers in the final 10 minutes and used a decisive 9-2 run midway through the final stanza to take down the Bears, 73-66. MSU got 14 points from Jarrid Rhodes, while J.T. Miller added 13 points. The Bears led for more than 19 minutes and by as many as 11 points, but could not get defensive stops down the stretch. BOX SCORE

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