Men’s Basketball Takes on Northern State on Sunday in NCAA DII Central Regional Semifinals

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Maryville, Mo. – The St. Cloud State men's basketball team (24-8) will take on familiar conference foe Northern State (32-3) in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Central Region on Sunday, March 11, at 5 p.m.

Northern State

The Wolves defeated Washburn by a 91-75 score on March 10 to advance to the semifinals of the NCAA DII Central Regional.
Northern State entered the tournament seeded second in the region.
The Wolves have won 11 in a row and were the regular season champions in the NSIC North and the league's tournament champions this season.
Northern State has five players averaging in double figures and are being led by DJ Pollard's 12.8 points per game.
Pollard is shooting 49.7 percent from the field, 42.7 percent from three-point range and 81.6 percent from the free throw line.
Darin Peterka puts up 12.5 points per game, while shooting 49.4 percent from the field, 43.1 percent from three-point range and 88.5 percent from the free throw line.
Ian Smith totals 11.9 points per game.
Smith also leads the team with 151 assists.
Logan Doyle picks up 11.9 points and a team-leading 7.0 rebounds per game.
He is second on the team in blocks (40).
Doyle is shooting 67.2 percent from the field and 75.6 percent from the free throw line.
Carter Evans averages 10.4 points per game and is second on the team with his 184 rebounds plus is shooting 62.5 percent from the field.
Evans leads the team with his 46 blocks.
Gabe King records 8.5 points per game and shoots 41.2 percent from the field.
Northern State is averaging 80.3 points per game, while shooting 51.1 percent from the field, 36.8 percent from three-point range and 75 percent from the free throw line.
The program has scored 80 or more points in 19 games with a high of 111 against Presentation College.
NSU is coached by Paul Sather, who is in his eighth year in charge of the program.

Prior Meetings

The SCSU program is 29-15 all-time against Northern State since the start of the series in 1959-60.
This is the third meeting of the season between the schools with SCSU winning 76-61 at home (1/19) and falling on the road to the Wolves by an 83-63 margin (2/17).
Jon Averkamp led the team with his 18 points and five rebounds in the home win.
Gage Davis picked up 16 points, six rebounds and nine assists.
Sean Smith had 15 points and six rebounds.
In the road loss, Brindley Theisen and Smith both had 14 points.

Listen to The Games
The game will be aired live on Granite City Sports (1390 AM) with J.W. Cox on the call. All SCSU games can also be heard online at www.1390granitecitysports.com

The game can also be heard on the KVSC Sports Stream with Leif Ender and Will Heyer on the call.

Live Stats/ Live Video Anyone?
Live video for all the NCAA DII Central Region tournament games can be found at this link

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Read This Week's Game Notes
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Notables

St. Cloud State earned an 81-68 victory over Southern Nazarene on March 10 to advance to the semifinals of the NCAA DII Central Regional.
This is 14th time that SCSU has made the NCAA Tournament since 1973-74.
The program has an all-time record of 13-15 in NCAA Tournament games.
This is the first appearance for SCSU in the tournament since the 2011-12 campaign.
The program has now won at least a game in the NCAA tournament in 10 of the 14 visits.
The program enters the semifinals having won 21 of the last 27 games.
The team trailed in the first half to Southern Nazarene by 10 points, 27-17, but stormed back to get to within two points at the half, 40-38.
The 10-point deficit overcome in a victory was the largest of the season for SCSU as the previous largest deficit overcome in a win was seven against Missouri Southern State in the first game of the season.
Overall it was the third time that St. Cloud has won a game when trailing at the half.
The Huskies opened the second half on a 17-2 run to start the last 20 minutes of play against the Crimson Storm.
Junior Gage Davis led the team in the game against the SNU with 27 points.
It was his ninth game this season and 44th game in his career that he has scored 20 or more points.
The game was also the seventh time this year that Davis has scored 25 or more points in a contest.
The 27 points was the most points scored by Davis since he put up 33 against Minnesota State last month (2/3).
The game was the 11th time that Davis has led the team in scoring this season.
The program is 19-5 when Davis suits up this season.
He also picked up seven rebounds, three assists, a block and two steals against the Crimson Storm.
Senior Jon Averkamp chipped in with 19 points, two assists and a steal.
It was Averkamp's 27th game in double figures this season.
Junior Sean Smith had 10 points and a team-leading nine rebounds and two blocks.
It was his 23rd game in double figures in blocks this season.
Smith has now scored in double figures in 22 contests on the campaign.
He has led the team in rebounding in 17 games.
Junior Brindley Theisen recorded 11 points against SNU for his 22nd game in double figures this season.
The team is 16-7 (.695 winning percentage) when Theisen can hit two or more threes in a game this year, but the team improves to 11-3 (.785 winning percentage) when he can get three or more threes in a contest in 2017-18.
Senior Andy Foley had eight points and two steals off the bench against SNU.
Sophomore Trevon Marshall chipped in with six points.
The program has all 81 points scored by six players with only nine players logging game action.
The Huskies shot 52.1 percent from the field (25-for-48) compared to Southern Nazarene's 43.1 percent (25-for-58) in the game.
It was the 17th time in the last 23 games that the program has shot above 50 percent from the field.
The program has shot 50 percent or better from the field in 20 games this season (18-2 record)
It was only the 11th time that the program has not held a rebounding edge (5-6 record).
The Huskies are 19-3 this season when scoring 70 or more points.
SCSU is 18-0 when allowing 69 or fewer points.
The team is 19-1 when holding opponents below 45 percent shooting.
The Huskies, who had 13 assists against Southern Nazarene compared to nine allowed, are 23-1 this season when leading in assists.
The team forced 17 turnovers against Southern Nazarene and are 18-3 when forcing 12 or more turnovers this season.
The program has won 13 of its last 15 games and has four players averaging in double figures in that stretch with Davis leading the team in both scoring (19.4) and rebounding (7.8), while also shooting 48 percent from the field.
Six players on the have played in all 32 games this season with three (Averkamp, Theisen and Smith) starting all of them.
Foley has played in 124 career games and tied the all-time games played record along with Brett Putz (2008-12).
Davis has moved into third all-time on the school's scoring list with 1,778 points.
His point total is 24 from reaching David Dreas in second place (2004-08).
Davis is eighth in the school all-time record books in rebounds with 710.
He is 11 rebounds from reaching Andrew Bernstetter (2007-11) for seventh.
Jon Averkamp is tied for seventh in career games played with 119.
He is 17th all-time in rebounding with 579.
Averkamp is 23rd on the all-time scoring list along with Matt Siegle (2002-05) as each has scored 1,293 points.
Theisen's 85 made threes this season is seventh on the single season list and two from tying Jon Bryant (1996-97) and Dean Kesler (1991-92) for fifth.
Smith's 83 blocks this season is fifth on the carrer list and four from reaching Rando Rancik (1998-02).
His 254 rebounds this season is the 10th most in school history in a single campaign and six from reaching Dan Hagen (1980-81).
The team's 17 league wins this season tied the school record set by the 2013-14 team.
The 24 wins on the campaign this year are the most since the 2009-10 team won 29 games and eighth time since the 2004-05 season that the program has won 20 or more games.

Up Next

If the Huskies defeat Northern State on Sunday, March 11, they will advance to the championship game of the NCAA DII Central Region and will take on the winner of #4 seed Southwest Minnesota State and #8 seed Minnesota State on Tuesday, March 13, at 7 p.m.
The program is 40-22 all-time against Southwest Minnesota since the first game of the series in 1969-70.
The program is 0-2 against the Mustangs this season and have lost their last three contests to SMSU.
The team is 2-0 against Minnesota State this year and have an overall record of 97-85 against the Mavericks since the start of the series in 1923-24.
With all four remaining teams being from the NSIC, the conference is guaranteed of having a team at the Elite Eight this season.