'Jacks Set For Second Straight Tournament
12/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 18, 2008
NACOGDOCHES, Texas -
ESSENTIALS
SFA vs. Austin Peay in the Arkansas Jim Thorpe Classic
Friday, December 19, 2008 • 7:05 p.m.
Bud Walton Arena (19,200) • Fayetteville, Ark.
Radio: Q107.7 FM • Television: None • Internet: Yahoo! Sports
GAME INFORMATION
Tournament Times Two: The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjack basketball team will play in its second consecutive tournament this weekend with two games in the Arkansas Jim Thorpe Classic. The Lumberjacks open play Friday night with a game against Austin Peay, and will follow that up by taking on host team Arkansas Saturday night. SFA is 6-2 and riding a five-game win streak after taking the title at last week's Drake Hy-Vee Classic. Austin Peay is 5-4. The Razorbacks bring a 7-1 record to the weekend and have won five straight.
Last Game: Josh Alexander scored a team-high 18 points -- all in the second half -- and Walt Harris was clutch in the closing minutes of SFA's 66-64 win over Drake to secure the championship in the Hy-Vee Classic. Harris scored SFA's last five points to help hold off a late charge by the Bulldogs that nearly erased what had been a 12-point Lumberjack lead with 6:18 remaining. He finished with a career-high 11 points. Nick Shaw also added 11, and Benson Akpan came off the bench for a career-high 13, giving SFA three straight games with at least four players scoring in double figures.
vs. The Opponents: SFA has never played Austin Peay in basketball. The Lumberjacks are 0-2 against Arkansas. The two teams last met in the 2006-07 season with the Razorbacks taking a 70-59 win.
The Field: Austin Peay had won four of its last five games coming into Wednesday's meeting with Arkansas. The Razorbacks have not lost since dropping a 62-57 decision at Missouri State on Nov. 22. In Wednesday's game, Michael Washington led Arkansas with 24 points and 14 rebounds, as the Razorbacks took an 89-80 verdict. Arkansas built a 50-41 advantage at the half, then held on down the stretch, as the Governors pulled to within two with under five minutes to play. Austin Peay was led by 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting by Drake Reed.
The Coaches: SFA is led by head coach Danny Kaspar. Kaspar is in his ninth season at the helm for the Lumberjacks. He holds a record of 140-98 (.588) at SFA and has a 359-150 (.705) overall record in 17-plus seasons as a collegiate head coach. Austin Peay is coached by Dave Loos, now in his 18th year with the Governors. John Pelphrey is in his second season at Arkansas.
Up Next: The Lumberjacks will take on Arkansas Saturday at 7:05 p.m. The game will be available online via ESPN360.com. SFA's next game will be a New Year's Day showdown with Texas Tech.
NEWS AND NOTES
RANK AND FILE: SFA's solid showing at the Drake Hy-Vee Classic moved the Lumberjacks into the top 10 in the most recent CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll. SFA began the year at No. 11, the first time in the poll's 10-year history for SFA to enter the season as a ranked team and the highest entry to the poll for a Lumberjack team to date. Monday's ranking marks the earliest move into the top 10 for SFA since the poll began. SFA spent a program-best 15 consecutive weeks ranked in last year's Mid-Major Top 25 after debuting at No. 25 on Dec. 10. The 'Jacks climbed as high as No. 6, including a first-place vote, on Feb. 25, and finished the season ranked 14th.
QUADRUPLE-DOUBLE: Four Lumberjacks reached double figures scoring in both games at the Drake Hy-Vee Classic, giving SFA three straight contests with at least four players reaching double figures. The Lumberjacks have accomplished the feat four times already this season. SFA had four players in double figures only six times all of last season.
ROAD SHOW: SFA's 66-64 win at Drake was the Lumberjacks' first true road victory of the season. It came on the heels of a neutral-site win against North Dakota State that was SFA's first win outside of Johnson Coliseum this season. The Lumberjacks recorded five non-conference road victories in 2007-08, when they went a program-best 12-1 before beginning Southland Conference play.
STREAKING: SFA has now won five straight games, dating to the Lumberjacks' 83-42 win over Texas College on Nov. 29. This marks SFA's longest win streak of the season and longest since running off eight straight victories late in the Southland Conference schedule last season.
WORKING OVERTIME: SFA's triple-overtime win against North Dakota State is the longest game in SFA's 23 years as a Division I program and the longest contest played by an SFA team since the Lumberjacks took a quadruple-overtime win against Southwestern, 101-99, in 1983. SFA is now 28-33, all-time, in overtime games. The Lumberjacks are 6-4 in their last 10 overtime contests.
SCORING SPREE: The 223 combined points SFA and NDSU scored is the highest combined total in an SFA game since the Lumberjacks' 123-103 loss to San Francisco in the 1994-95 season.
HIGH POINT: The 111 points scored by North Dakota State are the most given up by a Lumberjack team in nine seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar. The previous best for an opponent during the Kaspar era was the 92 scored by Arizona State in the season opener of the 2001-02 season, Kaspar's second at SFA. The 78 points the Bison scored in regulation are the most allowed by SFA in a regular-season game since the Lumberjacks beat Northern Illinois, 86-78, in 2006-07.
SIXTY: The 60 points scored by NDSU's Ben Woodside are the most scored by an individual against SFA in nine seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar. The last time an individual scored more than 50 points against a Lumberjack team was in the 1988-89 season, when McNeese State's Michael Cutright scored 51.
TAKE WHAT'S FREE: Junior point guard Girod Adams leads SFA in free throw percentage at .857. He's been perfect from the stripe in three of his last four games and has hit 11 of his last 12 attempts. At the Drake Hy-Vee Classic, Adams went 6-for-6 at the stripe, giving him seven straight makes dating to the Texas Wesleyan game. For the season, he is 12-of-14 on free throws.
DOUBLE-DOUBLE: Matt Kingsley scored 23 points and pulled down 13 rebounds against North Dakota State to record his sixth career double-double. The 13 rebounds are a season high for Kingsley and tie the career-best he set last November. With Kingsley's performance coming on the heels of Josh Alexander's 20-point, 10-rebound effort against Texas Wesleyan, the Lumberjacks have now posted double-doubles in consecutive games.
TWENTY-SOMETHING: Josh Alexander joined Kingsley above the 20-point barrier with 24 points against NDSU. He has now registered 20 or more points 22 times in his career.
TAKING THE LEAD: Eddie Williams scored a career-high 25 points on 11-of-18 shooting against North Dakota State. This marks the second time this season for Williams to lead the team in scoring. The first came in the season opener when he tied with Alexander and Kingsley for the team lead with 16 points against Howard Payne.
3-D: The Lumberjacks rank 10th in the country in 3-point field goal percentage defense, holding the opposition to 26.0 percent from downtown. Three opponents have been held below 20 percent from downtown, and only one team -- Texas A&M -- has shot better than 40 percent from 3-point range against the Lumberjacks.
KING FOR A DAY: With his career-high 33 points against Jackson State, senior Matt Kingsley briefly took over the team scoring lead from classmate Josh Alexander. Kingsley's jump to 17.0 points per game took him from 17th in the Southland Conference to fourth in one game. It was his second career 30-point game. Kingsley is currently fifth in the SLC with 16.3 points per game.
ON THE MONEY: Kingsley did most of his damage in his career game against Jackson State with high-percentage shots in the paint. In fact, high-percentage may be an understatement. He posted a career-best 15-for-16 performance from the field. Kingsley was 12-for-12 with 25 points in the first half.
MOVIN' ON UP: Josh Alexander and Matt Kingsley each jumped two spaces on the SFA career scoring list with their performances at the Drake Hy-Vee Classic. Alexander scored 42 points on the weekend to move from ninth all-time to No. 7 with 1,432 points. Kingsley scored 31 points in two games at Drake to go from No. 20 all-time to 18th with 1,126 total points.
BETTER HALF: SFA held Texas College to 11 points in the second half of the Lumberjacks' 83-42 win. This ties for the lowest one-half point total given up to an opponent in nine seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar and is the best second-half point total allowed in that time span. The 'Jacks have held opposing teams below 20 points in a single half 30 times under Kaspar and are 28-2 in such contests. SFA held eight opponents under 20 points in a half during the 2007-08 campaign and has done so three times this season.
NO SHOT: The Lumberjacks dominated Texas College in the second half of their 83-42 victory. The Steers were just 2-for-22 from the field -- both 3-pointers -- in the final 20 minutes for a second-half shooting percentage of .091. That's the lowest single-half average of the season, and it left Texas College with a .308 shooting percentage for the game, the third time in four contests an SFA opponent had shot worse than 35 percent.
THREE-FOR-ALL: Josh Alexander tied a career-high with seven 3-point field goals in SFA's loss at Texas A&M. Alexander was 7-for-10 from downtown and 7-for-12 overall to finish with 21 points. That marked the 11th time in Alexander's career for all his field goals in a game to come from 3-point range. Coming into that contest, the most 3-pointers he had ever hit in a game without scoring from inside the arc was six at Sam Houston Sate during the 2007-08 season. With no attempts at the free throw line, that effort marked just the fifth time in Alexander's career for all his points to come on threes. The previous best total in that scenario was the 12 points he scored on 4-of-7 shooting at Missouri in 2006-07.
OUTSTANDING ASSISTANCE: Through eight games, the Lumberjacks have recorded 126 assists on 224 made field goals. That's a ratio of one dime for every 1.8 buckets. Junior point guard Eric Bell's 22 assists are tied with sophomore shooting guard Eddie Williams for the team lead. Junior point guard Girod Adams is close behind with 12 assists on the season.
BIG 12: In eight seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar, SFA is 2-6 against teams from the Big 12 Conference. The 'Jacks have played at least one Big 12 foe in all but two seasons of Kaspar's tenure -- 2001-02 and 2004-05. SFA's two wins were at Baylor (79-57) in 2003-04 and at Oklahoma (66-62) last season. Last week's game at Texas A&M marked the first of two contests against Big 12 opponents this season. SFA will also take on Texas Tech on New Year's Day.
THREE OF A KIND: Seniors Josh Alexander and Matt Kingsley tied with sophomore Eddie Williams for the high-point total in SFA's opener against Howard Payne. Each of the three accounted for 16 points. Combined, they would have outscored the Yellow Jackets, 48-38, on their own.
LOW POINT: While defense has always been emphasized by SFA head coach Danny Kaspar, recent history has seen an even stronger defensive performance by the 'Jacks. In eight-plus seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar, SFA has held 29 opponents to 50 points or fewer. SFA held the competition below that level nine times in 2007-08. The previous best under Kaspar was four games in a single season with fewer than 50 points. So far this season, the Lumberjacks have held three opponents to fewer than 50 points.
REMEMBERING A LUMBERJACK LEGEND: In memory of Marshall Brown, who passed away over the summer, the Lumberjacks will wear a black band on their game jerseys during the 2008-09 season. Brown coached men's basketball at SFA from 1959-1978 and is the school's all-time winningest coach with 345 career victories.
• Click here for complete game notes in .pdf format.
-- SFA --
