Truman Men's Basketball Game Notes (December 31, 2014)
Game #11: Truman (8-2) vs. Hannibal-LaGrange (2-8)
When:Â Wednesday, December 31, 2014 | 12 p.m.
Where: Kirksville, Mo. | Pershing Arena
Live Stream: Truman Athletics All-Access
Radio: 104.7 FM KRES | Listen | Announcers: Brad Boyer (PBP) and Hank Janssen (Analyst)
Live Stats: Regular/Mobile | Media
Printable Notes: Truman | Hannibal-LaGrange | GLVC
Stats: Truman | Hannibal-LaGrange | GLVC
Twitter: @TrumanAthletics || @TSUBulldogHoops || #TSUGameDay
Series Notes vs. Hannibal-LaGrange
Series Record: Truman leads, 12-4.
Series Record in Kirksville: Truman leads, 12-4.
Last Meeting: Feb. 13, 2012 || Truman won, 76-73 in Kirksville.
Last Truman Loss to HLG: Dec. 1, 2007 || HLG won, 71-66 in Kirksville.
Series Streak: Truman, W-4
Probable Starters
 Off the Bench
 Staff
Head Coach: Chris Foster
Career Record: 8-2 || .800 || 1st season (all at Truman)
GLVC Record: 1-0 || 1.000 || 1st season
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Assistant Coach: Joe Barrer (1st season)
Graduate Assistant Coach: Nik Koprivica (1st season)
Men's Basketball Athletic Trainer: Morgan Locher (1st season)
Opening Tip:
The Truman men's basketball team looks to finish 2014 on a winning note and goes after its eighth straight victory on Wednesday afternoon, when the Bulldogs (8-2) play host to Hannibal-LaGrange (2-8) at 12 p.m. in Pershing Arena.
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Truman – winners of seven straight regular season contests dating back to Nov. 28 – will try to pitch a perfect 6-0 record in the month of December while also looking to become just the second Great Lakes Valley Conference team to hit the nine-win mark before the turn of the calendar to 2015. In its way on Wednesday afternoon is the program's final non-conference opponent of the season – a Hannibal-LaGrange squad that has been idle since a 64-45 setback to Williams Baptist College on December 13.
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Wednesday's contest marks the sixth out of eight consecutive home games, in which the Bulldogs have blazed their way to a 5-0 mark so far on the home-stand. Truman has averaged 96 points per game in the five contests and has shot 58% from the floor overall. The Bulldogs have hit 59 three-pointers in the five games to a tune of 48% and have also converted at the free throw line to a clip of 81%. On the defensive end, the Bulldogs have held their December opposition to just 54 points per game and 38% overall from the field – including a 32% mark from three-point territory.
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The Bulldogs continue to be led offensively by senior guard Seth Jackson, who enters the game as the GLVC's scoring leader at 21.5 points per game. He is joined in double figures by fellow senior guard Reed Mells, who checks in at 14.0 points per game while also serving as the team's leading assist man at 3.4 per contest. Five more guards – Isaac Gardner, Kyle Kanaskie, Cory Myers, Andrew Vander Zwaag, and Cole Myers – come in third through seventh in scoring, before the team's first big man – sophomore Connor Erickson checks in at 5.4 points and 3.0 rebounds per game.
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While the Bulldogs have excelled offensively on the year at 53% from the floor, one area that will need to improve is the team's rebounding, as the purple and white still hold a -0.2 margin on the glass despite a +9.0 margin during the five games of this home-stand. Truman has given up 13 more second chance points than it has scored this year, but has marginalized that difference on the glass by turning 164 opponent turnovers into 216 points – an average of 21.6 per game.
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Chris Foster is in his first season along the Bulldog sideline as the program's head coach, having moved over one seat this season after serving as the team's associate head coach a year ago. This is Foster's first season as a collegiate head coach, and he is the 13th head coach in program history. His 8-2 start on the sideline is the best start by a Truman first-year head coach since Boyd King opened his first season with 19 consecutive victories in 1946.
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Bulldog Tweetables (140 characters or less):- Wednesday will be the 2,186th game in program history, with the team holding a 1,118-1,067 all-time record in now 95 seasons of basketball.
- Already 5-0 this year, Truman looks to build on last year's 12-2 home mark, in which they won by an average of 9.1 ppg in GLVC games (7-2).
- The Bulldogs are shooting 52.5% from the floor, inc. 42.1% from 3-point distance this year. Opponents are at 40.4%/34.1% respectively.
- Truman is connecting at 75.0% (165-of-220) from the foul line, while opponents are shooting 67.9% (106-of-156) at the stripe.
- The Bulldogs have been out-rebounded in seven of 10 games so far, with a -0.2 margin on the glass.
- Truman has been careful with the ball this year, posting equal/fewer turnovers than their opponents in each game.
- Truman has a turnover margin of +6.7 on the season, while forcing 67 more turnovers than they've committed in 2014-15.
- Four different Bulldogs have hit at least 10 three-pointers this season, led by 24 from senior guard Isaac Gardner.
- Eight players are averaging at least 15 minutes per game, with Mells' 27.7 per game serving as the team-high.
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Scouting the HLG Trojans:
As mentioned above, the Trojans will be playing their first game in 18 days on Wednesday afternoon, as the 2-8 HLG squad is coming off back-to-back American Midwest Conference home losses to close its fall semester. Members of the NAIA, the Trojans have played two NCAA Div. II teams this season in exhibitions – falling 74-44 at Quincy and 72-43 at Missouri Western State. The squad also battled NCAA Div. I program Southeast Missouri State to an 86-49 loss on Nov. 18.
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Scoring has been the biggest struggle this year for the Trojans, as HLG is averaging just 52.5 points per game while giving up nearly 67 per game through ten contests. Hometown product Jay Jones (#2) – a junior guard – is the team's scoring leader at 15.3 points per game, while junior forward Joe Reed (#5) ranks second in scoring at 7.8 points per game and first in team rebounding at 5.2 per game. HLG has turned the ball over 170 times to just 106 assists and is shooting 38% overall, 31% from three-point range, and 59% from the free throw line.
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Jason Durst is in his ninth season at Hannibal-LaGrange, having taken over the program in 2005.
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Bulldogs Scoring the Free Ones:
Just one year removed from setting the program's new standard for single-season free throw shooting at 74.1%, the 2014-15 Bulldogs are on pace to break the newly-established number this season. Through the first 10 games, the Bulldogs have connected on 75.0% of their team free throws, making 165 of the 220 total taken from the charity stripe.
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Helping fuel that high number from the line is redshirt sophomore Cory Myers, who currently is riding the longest free throws made streak in program history at 32 consecutive from the line. He is a perfect 21-for-21 this season, which combines with a 10-for-10 mark prior to a season-ending injury last year and the final free throw of his freshman campaign in 2012-13. His final free throw against Iowa Wesleyan on Dec. 19 broke the previous program record of 31, set in the 2009-2010 season by Tom Norton.
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Bombs Away:
In addition to the high free throw totals, the Bulldogs are also on pace to set a new program record in three-pointers made in a single-season with 98 through the first 10 games this year. The all-time record of 246 (in 26 games) was set in 2001-02, with last year's squad coming up 13 triples short.
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The Bulldogs have topped 200 each of the last three seasons, beginning with 205 in 2011-12 and 201 in 2012-13.
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Truman has seen sustained success from distance throughout program history, with the Bulldogs having made at least one three-pointer in every game since Feb. 12, 2003 – a stretch of 315 consecutive games.
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Bulldogs Ranking in the GLVC:
Thanks to five 20+ point performances through the team's first 10 games of the season – six coming against NCAA Div. II opposition – senior guard Seth Jackson is leading the Great Lakes Valley Conference at 21.5 points per game. He is one of just three players currently averaging at least 20 points per game, with the St. Louis-native currently edging out both Cameron Vines from Saint Joseph's College (20.9 ppg) and Gavin Schumann from Southern Indiana (20.0 ppg).
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Other top-5 Bulldogs in individual categories include guards Kyle Kanaskie and Cole Myers sitting second and third in three-point field goal percentage; Isaac Gardner ranking fifth in three-pointers made, and Cory Myers topping all GLVC players in free throw percentage.
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As a team, Truman ranks first in field goal percentage and three-point percentage, second in scoring offense, free throw percentage, turnover margin, and assist-to-turnover ratio, and third in scoring defense, assists, and steals.
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Scratching Records:
The Bulldogs have used the month of December to re-write a handful of single-game team record columns – most notably on Monday (Dec. 15) night when the team drained a program-high 18 three-pointers in the win against Faith Baptist. Truman broke a nearly 13-year old record that had been previously set on Feb. 7, 2002 at Central Missouri, when the Bulldogs hit 16 three-pointers in a loss at then-CMSU.
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This year's squad also now holds the Nos. 2 and 4 spots on the field goal percentage charts, with the squad's 63.6% night against Lincoln Christian and 61.1% night against Faith Baptist knocking a February 1992 night against Washburn (63.0%) down one spot to No. 3. The program's all-time record of 64.1% against Northwest Missouri (March 1975) still stands despite the team's 66.7% night against Central Christian this year since the minimum 60 field goal attempts required was not reached against the CCCB Saints (36-for-54).
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Truman also currently holds the GLVC's top scoring margin by any team this season, with the team's 65-point win against Lincoln Christian holding the No. 1 slot. The Bulldogs also have two wins ranked No. 6 in that category, with 56-point wins against both Central Christian and Faith Baptist.
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#UniWatch:
The Bulldogs added a third jersey to their uniform arsenal this season, picking up an anthracite-gray to go along with the team's traditional purple and white choices. The full game notes will be tracking the team's record in each color this year, with only the white kit (6-0) and gray kit (2-2) seeing action so far.
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Hands Off!:
The Bulldogs have posted three of the GLVC's five-lowest single-game foul totals this season, with the team committing just three against Central Christian, six against Faith Baptist, and nine against Lincoln Christian. The team had a stretch of 24-minutes and 24-seconds of not committing a single foul, including the entire second half against CCCB.
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Found: 20 Wins!:
Last year's Bulldog team became the first to win 20 games since the 2005-06 team capped its season with a 20-9 record. Only five previous Bulldog teams – 1946-47 (30-2), 1947-48 (29-2), 1978-79 (20-9), 1998-99 (26-7), 2005-06 (20-9) – reached the 20-win mark in a season.
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In addition, the Bulldogs' 13 conference wins last season set a new program record, as only two other Bulldog teams reached the dozen win mark during their respective conference slates.
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A Whole New Venue:
The Great Lakes Valley Conference's 20 league championships sites have been determined for the 2014-15 season, with the most notable change to the GLVC Championship schedule coming in basketball.
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The 2015 GLVC Men's and Women's Basketball Championship Tournament will enter into its first of a two-year agreement with the Family Arena in St. Charles, Mo., just minutes outside St. Louis. The league's premiere event had been held the past two years at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, but a two-year schedule conflict with the venue required the GLVC to relocate. The 2015 event will begin with first-round competition on campus sites on March 1, with eight quarterfinalists on both the men's and women's side advancing to Family Arena for tournament action, March 5-8. Tickets for the 2015 GLVC Men's and Women's Basketball Championship Tournament are expected to go on sale in late November.Â
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Up Next:
The Bulldogs will kick off the new year with a pair of GLVC home contests next Friday (Jan. 2) and Sunday (Jan. 4), when Truman hosts Wisconsin-Parkside at 5:30 p.m. and Lewis at 3 p.m., respectively.
