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Missouri State

Zaxton -346

Bears Ready for First Road Test Saturday at UTA

November 13, 2025

By: MSU Athletics Communications
Game 4 - Missouri State Bears (2-1) at UT Arlington Mavericks (2-1)
Date and Time Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025  | 5:02 p.m. (Central)
Location College Park Center (7,000) | Arlington, Texas
Tickets UTAMavs.com | (817) 272-9595
Radio KWTO (FM 93.3 / AM 560) (John Miller, Mike Keltner) | Listen Live | Bears Radio Network | Varsity Network App
Television ESPN+ (Chris Mycoskie, Parker Eidson) | Watch
Series Missouri State leads 6-5 | Last Meeting: MSU 78, UTA 68 (11/19/24) | Box Score
Live Stats StatBroadcast
Game Notes Missouri State | UT Arlington | CUSA Weekly Notebook | 
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Up Next Saturday, Nov. 22 vs. UT Rio Grande Valley (4:00 p.m.) | Tickets

The Ten Count
  • Missouri State will embark on its first road game of the 2025-26 campaign on Saturday when the Bears travel to UT Arlington for a 5 p.m. tipoff against the Mavericks at College Park Center (ESPN+). MSU is 6-5 all-time against UTA and is making its first trip to Arlington since 1986. 
  • The Bears have had double-doubles in each of their first three games with Michael Osei-Bonsu posting 22 points and a career-high 14 rebounds vs. Missouri Southern, Darrion Sutton notching 18 points and 11 rebounds (both career highs) against Northwestern Oklahoma State, and Osei-Bonsu bouncing back with 21 points and 10 rebounds in Tuesday's home game against Arkansas State.
  • Freshman point guard Trey Williams Jr. (Centralia, Ill.) has quietly collected double figures in scoring three times in three games with 10 points and 5 rebounds in a team-high 33 minutes on the floor vs. Missouri Southern;  11 points with 4 assists and 3 triples vs. Northwestern Oklahoma; and 14 points and 2 assists against Arkansas State. His 11.67 scoring average is tied for 84th nationally among Division I freshmen.
  • MSU's 60 points in the paint against Northwestern Oklahoma State on Nov. 8 shattered the club record of 54, set vs. Illinois State on 2/5/20. The Bears are averaging 48.7 points in the paint per game. Points in the paint first appeared on NCAA box scores in 2005. 
  • Returning starter Zaxton King (So., Lawrence, Kan.) posted his first double-figure scoring game of the year in last Saturday's win over NWOSU with 12 points. He followed that effort with a breakout game against Arkansas State on Tuesday, going for 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting with a pair of triples and 5 rebounds.
  • Standout power forward Keith Palek (Sr., Woodbine, N.J.) ranks 6th in Conference USA in scoring (18.0), which is 142nd nationally. The transfer from California (Pa.) is up to 1,190 career points in 91 games (13.1 ppg) which ranks No. 107 among active NCAA players (all Divisions).
  • Darrion Sutton (So., St. Charles, Mo.) ranks 5th in CUSA in rebounds per game (9.7), which ranks 55th among all DI players. He also ranks 41st nationally in total rebounds (29) and 61st in defensive rebounds per game (6.67), all coming off the bench. He also leads the Bears with 5 steals.
  • Kobi Williams (Jr., St. Louis, Mo.) has logged 10 assists with just 2 turnovers this season with his 5.0 assist-to-turnover ratio ranking 4th in Conference USA and 66th in the Division I ranks.
  • KenPom ranks the Bears No. 4 in Division I in FTRate (66.1), a "Four Factor" metric that represents a team's ability to get to the line (=FTA/FGA), trailing only Richmond (71.9), Buffalo (68.4) and Colorado (67.8). MSU is shooting 70.7 percent at the stripe this season, which ranks 5th in CUSA.
  • MSU great Curtis Perry snagged a school-record 31 rebounds vs. UT Arlington in a home game at McDonald Arena on 2/10/70. Perry's 31 boards against UTA still stands as a Bears single-game record.
Coach Cuonzo Martin
  • After an extensive national search, Missouri State University announced Cuonzo Martin as its men's basketball head coach on March 27, 2024. The man who orchestrated Missouri State's only MVC regular-season championship run during his first tenure in Springfield originally coached at Missouri State from 2008 to 2011.
  • Martin has a 275-222 career record in his 16th seasons as a Division I head coach with experience at MSU, Tennessee, California and Missouri. His teams have made 9 postseason appearances in that span, including 4 trips to the NCAA Tournament, 4 appearances in the NIT, and a CIT title with the Bears in 2010. 
  • Coach Martin is 72-65 in his fifth season (and second stint) at Missouri State, including 53-20 at home, 14-39 on the road and 5-6 at neutral sites.
  • Martin also  boasts 59 college graduates during his career with stints at MoState, Tennessee (2011-14), California (2014-17) and Missouri (2017-22).
  • A native of East St. Louis, Ill., Martin was a star player at Purdue from 1991-95 for coach Gene Keady and then played four years professionally. He was on the coaching staff at Purdue for eight years under Keady and Matt Painter before accepting his first head coaching position at MSU on March 26, 2008.
  • In Martin's first stint in Springfield (2008-11), he was named Missouri State's 16th head coach in time for the program's 100th anniversary season and its inaugural campaign at Great Southern Bank Arena. In his second season (2009-10), Martin guided MoState to a 24-12 overall ledger, a 19-2 home record, and an impressive run to the CIT Postseason Tournament title.
  • His third season at MSU (2010-11) was one of the program's most memorable, as the Bears finished 26-9 overall on the way to its first-ever MVC regular-season title with a 15-3 league record. The Bears fell to Indiana State in the finals of the MVC Tournament in St. Louis and capped an unforgettable campaign by advancing to the second round of the NIT. Martin was named 2011 MVC Coach of the Year and recipient of the Ben Jobe Award as the nation's top minority head coach. Over Martin's last two years at MoState, the Bears were 35-3 at home and did not lose a non-conference home game.
  • Martin's return to MoState in 2024-25 featured a roster packed with 15 newcomers for the Bears' final season in the Missouri Valley. MSU's 9-23 overall record was not a fair representation of the club's season performance which included 14 single-digit losses -- which was tied for the fourth-most in the nation.
The Series
  • Missouri State and UT Arlington have met 11 times with the Bears leading the rivalry, 6-5. The Bears are 5-1 at home against the Mavericks, and 1-4 in Arlington. 
  • The last meeting between the clubs in Arlington was on Jan. 6, 1986 with an 80-69 Missouri State victory. The Bears shot 56 percent from the field and got 23 points from Greg Bell and 21 from Phil Shlegel in the victory. Bell and Winston Garland each contributed 7 rebounds to the winning cause.
  • Last year at Great Southern Bank Arena (Nov. 19, 2024), Missouri State outscored UT Arlington by 13 points in the second half and pulled away down the stretch to record a 78-68 home win. Zaxton King led five Missouri State players in double figures with 18 points. The Bears also got 11 points from Chase Martin, including 7-of-8 at the line. The Bears' victory was not an easy task with seven ties and 14 lead changes dictating the first 30 minutes of the contest.  | Box Score
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