Men’s Basketball Set For Quarterfinals Matchup with Upper Iowa

ST. CLOUD, Minn. – The St. Cloud State men's basketball team (19-13) heads to Sioux Falls, S.D. for the quarterfinal round of the 2017 NSIC/Sanford Health Men's Basketball Tournament on Sunday, Feb. 26, at the Sanford Pentagon against Upper Iowa (20-9).

Scouting Upper Iowa

The Peacocks are coached by Brooks McKowen, who is in his fourth year running the program.
Upper Iowa got a buzzer beating shot from Carson Parker with just 3.7 seconds remaining in the game to defeat Minnesota Crookston by an 82-79 score on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and advance to the second round of the NSIC/Sanford Health Men's Basketball Tournament for the fifth straight season.
Since the team's loss in St. Cloud in mid-January, Upper Iowa has won nine of the last 12 games
UIU had a pair of players earn NSIC All-Conference accolades.
Jordan Hays was named the league's Defensive Player of the Year and also earned a spot on the NSIC's All-Conference Second Team
Parker was a First Team All-NSIC selection
UIU has six players averaging better than 9.5 points per game this season.
Hay is the program's leading scorer and rebounder at 12.5 points and 6.3 rebounds per game.
Hay also leads the team with his 41 blocks and 43 steals.
He ranks third in the league in both categories.
Jimmy Roth scores 11.9 points per game and also has 61 assists.
Parker sports and 11.7 points per game average and has handed out 119 assists (4.1 per game).
Dennis Austin III gets 10.1 points per game, while shooting 51 percent from the field.
Luke Lenhart picks up 9.9 points per game and has 58 made threes.
Josh Weeber gets 9.5 points per game and leads the group with his 58 made threes.
The Peacocks rank in the top six as a team in the NSIC in assists per game (14.0 – 6th), field goal percentage (48.0 – 6th), free throw attempts (640 – 3rd), free throws made (459 – 2nd), scoring offense (80.1 – 6th), steals per game (6.4 – 3rd), three-point percentage (38.4 – 5th), total steals (187 – 3rd), turnover margin (1.0 – 4th), turnovers forced (13.69 – 3rd) and win-loss percentage (69.0 – 5th).

Prior Meetings

St. Cloud State is 16-5 all-time against Upper Iowa in a series that started in 1951-52.
The program has won three of the last seven games against the Peacocks.
St. Cloud State defeated Upper Iowa by an 92-89 score at Halenbeck Hall earlier this season (1/13).
Gage Davis had 26 points, five rebounds, four assists in that contest.
He scored 15 of his 26 points in the second half.
Scottie Stone chipped in with 22 points.
Trevon Marshall picked up 17 points.
The Huskies trailed in the game 43-37 at the break and outscored the Peacocks 55-46 in the last 20 minutes.
The team shot 57.4 from the field in the game (35-for-61) and 50 percent from three-point range (9-for-18).
The Peacocks nearly matched SCSU shot for shot in going 36-for-66 from the field (54.5 percent) and 9-for-20 from three-point range (45 percent).
This will be the third time that the team has faced Upper Iowa in the NSIC Tournament.
The program had its season ended by Upper Iowa in Fayette, Iowa last season during the first round of the NSIC/Sanford Health Men's Basketball Tournament by an 87-80 score.
Gage Davis scored 24 points with 14 rebounds in that contest.
The team also lost to UIU by a 73-55 score in the semifinals of the NSIC MBB Tournament during the 2012-13 season.

Listen to The Game
The game will be aired live on KXSS The Fan 1390 with J.W. Cox on the call. The game can also be heard online here

Live Stats Anyone?
Live stats for the NSIC/Sanford Health Men's Basketball Tournament can be found by clicking on this link

Watch The Games
Fans around the world can watch the tournament games online through this link

Read This Week's Game Notes
A complete collection of interesting game notes, stats, rosters and records is available weekly in the SCSU Basketball Notes Package.

Notables

St. Cloud State defeated Wayne State by a 92-78 score in the first round of the NSIC/Sanford Health Men's Basketball Tournament on Feb. 22 to advance to the quarterfinals
The program has reached NSIC Men's Basketball Championship Game three times since 2008 and has an all-time record of 13-6 in NSIC post-season play.
The win over WSC puts SCSU at 45-41 all-time in post-season playing dating back to 1945-46.
The will be the second straight year and the third time overall that SCSU has matched up with Upper Iowa.
The win over Wayne State College was the 15th straight win over the Wildcats.
The victory was also the 19th of the season for the Huskies and that is the most in a season for the program since winning 20 games during the 2013-14 season.
The program has now won 19 or more games in nine of the last 12 seasons.
Mark Hall and Jon Averkamp led the charge for SCSU against Wayne State College with 19 points each.
For Averkamp, it was his 19th time in double figures this season and 33rdd time in his career.
He has scored in double figures in seven of his last eight games.
In his last six games, Averkamp is averaging 20.2 points per game while shooting 60.2 percent from the field (50-for-83) and 83.3 percent from the free throw line (20-for-24).
Mark Hall has scored in double figures in each of his last three games.
His 19 points against WSC was his most points scored since he also put up 19 against Saint John's in late November (11/22).
Scottie Stone picked up 18 points and six rebounds.
Stone has now scored in double figures in 30 of the team's 32 games this season.
Gage Davis had a steady game with 14 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
Davis also continued to creep toward the school's all-time single season scoring record and is only 11 points from reaching Kevin Catron (1985-86).
Andy Foley picked up his second straight double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds plus six assists against WSC.
Foley joins Davis (13) and Kurt Hall (2) with multiple double-doubles this seasons.
The Huskies shot 51.7 percent from the field (31-for-60) and 92 percent from the free throw line (23-for-25).
The program is 11-2 this season when shooting 50 percent or higher from the field.
The team is also 11-1 this season when scoring 90 or more points.
The win was the 50th in the career of head coach Matt Reimer

Davis and Stone Named to NSIC All-Conference Team

Gage Davis and Scottie Stone were both named to the NSIC All-Conference Teams.
Davis was an NSIC First Team selection for the second straight season.
He set a new conference record this season with 544 points in league-only games and had the highest scoring average (24.7) by any player in league games since the 1996-97 season.
Overall, Davis also leads the league in scoring (22.9), ranks second in double-doubles (13) and is third in rebounds per game (8.8) and total assists (137)
Stone was NSIC Second Team All-Conference for the second straight year.
He averaged 19 points per game (4th in league-only games), while scoring 20 or more points in 10 of the 22 NSIC games.
Stone was also the league's top free throw shooter in league-only games (93.2) and made the most threes in NSIC games (77).
He ranks fifth overall in scoring at 18.1 and has the most made threes in the league (106).

Up Next

The Huskies, if they advance in the quarterfinals and into the semifinals, will take on the winner of the Concordia-St. Paul and Minnesota State contest on Monday, Feb. 27, at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at 5:30 p.m.