By: KSU Sports Information
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Owls Game Notes
Missouri Game Notes
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Kennesaw State Owls end their nearly-two week hiatus on Thursday evening when they visit the No. 8 – ranked Missouri Tigers at Mizzou Arena. The game will be aired live on ESPN3, while Directv and Dish Network subscribers can also see the game on Fox Sports Midwest..
The Owls (2-5) will be looking to snap a three-game slide and bounce back from a tough start to the month of December, as they dropped a pair of games in Nashville to Atlantic Sun Conference opponents Belmont and Lipscomb. Junior Markeith Cummings led the Black and Gold in scoring in both contests.
Watch, Listen Live: Thursday night’s game will be aired on ESPN3, ESPN’s multi-platform network that is available at
www.ESPN3.com. Directv and Dish Network subscribers can also see the game on Fox Sports Midwest.
Live audio will be available on Kennesaw State All-Access, free of charge at
www.KSUOwls.com/showcase, with Brian Harper calling the play-by-play and Scott Lipsky providing color analysis. Live stats will be available at www.MUTigers.com.
The Start of a Long Trip: On Wednesday, the Owls embarked on an 11-day, five-game road trip that will take them to three different states and will see them travel a total of 5,189 miles before arriving back in Kennesaw on Christmas Eve. They play a total of eight road games during the month of December, without playing one at home.
Following their game against the Tigers on Thursday evening, the Black and Gold will travel to the southwest corner of the Show-Me State for a Saturday afternoon game against Missouri State at 3:05 p.m. EST. That will be followed by a flight out to the Bay Area to take on Saint Mary’s in Moraga, Calif., on Monday evening (10:00 p.m. EST). Those two contests will encompass the campus-site portion of the Owls participation in the Continental Tires Las Vegas Classic. They will then wrap up their trip and the event with a pair of games at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, taking on Tennessee Tech on Thursday, Dec. 22, and either Bethune-Cookman or Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Friday, Dec. 23.
Heading Into Almost-Unchartered Territory: The No. 8-ranked Tigers are just the second team that the Owls will face at the Division I level to be nationally ranked in the top 10 in either major poll. The Black and Gold visited Wichita State, also ranked No. 8 at the time, on Dec. 19, 2006 in their only other try against a top-10 opponent. They fell in the hard-fought contest, 74-65.
The Owls Vs. The Big 12: Thursday’s contest vs. the Tigers will be the Owls third in their history against a Big 12 opponent. They visited Iowa State on Nov. 24 of last season, dropping a, 91-51, decision, and faced Kansas State in Las Vegas on Dec. 17, 2006, falling to the Wildcats, 82-54.
Big Milestone Ahead For Dixon: Owls Senior Spencer Dixon is just four points away from becoming the 14
th player in Owls history to reach the 1,000-point mark for his career.
He’s Not One Dimensional: While Markeith Cummings currently leads the Atlantic Sun Conference with 18.2 points per game, he has also led the Owls in rebounds three times and assists twice.
Making Noise on the National Level: While juniors Markeith Cummings and Aaron Anderson currently lead the Atlantic Sun Conference in scoring (18.2 ppg) and rebounding (9.1 rpg), respectively, they are also among the national leaders
in those categories. As of the NCAA’s last statistical update on Dec. 12, Anderson ranks 39
th in the nation in rebounds per game, while Cummings is 60
th in scoring.
Learning From the Former Bosses: Two of the Tigers’ nine wins this season have come against teams headed up by coaches that have had Owls head coach Lewis Preston on their staffs. Missouri defeated Notre Dame, coached by Mike Brey, 87-58, on Nov. 21, and Ed DeChellis’ Navy squad, 84-59, on Dec. 10. Preston served on Brey’s staff at Notre Dame from 2000-06 and Penn State under DeChellis from 2008-11.
The Last Time Preston and Haith Squared Off: The last time the two head coaches in Thursday evening’s game met on the sidelines, they were assistants, with Preston helping Mike Brey and the unranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish to a, 98-92, upset victory on Dec. 8, 2002 over the then-No. 2-ranked Texas Longhorns, where Haith was an assistant coach on Rick Barnes’ staff. The game took place in Washington, D.C.
Key Stat: Both the Owls and their opponents and have been prolific from behind the arc so far this season. While shooting just a modest 35.3 percent from three-point range, the Black and Gold have made at least five treys in each of their last six games, while their opponents have made five or more in all seven contests in 2011-12.
About Missouri:
-Missouri (9-0) enters Thursday ranked No. 8 in the nation in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll and No. 10 in the Associated Press Poll.
-The Tigers are coached by Frank Haith, who is in his first season in Columbia after spending the last seven seasons at the helm of the Miami Hurricanes. He had a record of 129-101 in Coral Gables, making an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2008.
-The Tigers feature one of the most dangerous offensive attacks in the nation, as four players are currently averaging in double figures in Denmon, fellow seniors Kim English (16.2 ppg), Ricardo Ratliffe (14.2) and junior Michael Dixon (10.1).
-Ratliffe is currently second in the nation with an incredible 76.0 field goal pct. (57-75).
-Denmon, Ratliffe and English have been joined in the starting lineup in all nine of their games this season by brothers Matt and Phil Pressey, sons of former NBA star Paul Pressey. While Phil is a sophomore, Matt is gives the Tigers four seniors in their starting lineup, with a total of eight seniors suiting up for Missouri this season.
-All nine of Missouri’s wins this season have come with double digit margins.
-Frank Haith’s squad enters Wednesday as one of just nine unbeaten squads left in NCAA Division I.
-For all their success this season, the Tigers have actually been playing without one of their leading returnees in senior Laurence Bowers, who was second on last year’s squad in scoring (11.6 ppg) and led the way in rebounding (6.1 rpg). Bowers will miss all of 2011-12 due to injury.
The Owls Sound Off:
Senior Guard Romain Henry:
On how they can rebound from their pair of losses last weekend:
"We need to come out and elevate our level of energy and effort that is needed to be competitive throughout the game. We need to keep up our intensity from the opening tip to the final buzzer, instead of falling into an early deficit before we decide to pick it up, which is what happened at Belmont. The competition at this level of basketball is at too high of a level to constantly have to come from behind in order to find wins, so solid energy right from tip-off will be crucial for us."
On the mentality they will need against a team like Missouri:
"We will have to play harder than we ever have, all of those guys are veterans and they play extremely hard, so we need to just go out and play harder than they do, it’s as simple as that. It’s always our main focus to come out and throw the first punch, so to speak, and it will be extremely important to do that on Thursday and keep our energy level where it needs to be for 40 minutes. We don’t get many opportunities to play against a team of their caliber, so we need to take full advantage of that and make it as hard on them as possible."
Junior Guard Markeith Cummings:
On playing a long string of games on the road:
"We need to stay focused and stay healthy, this is going to be a long trip and we can’t worry about where we’re playing. Being on the road throughout December is something that most of us on this team went through last season. If you take a positive approach to it, it can really bring the team closer together. We’ve been through it so we’re smarter now when it comes to that. Road games build character, because we need to come out and make a statement early on in the game."
