GAME NOTES: Central Arkansas
1/12/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 12, 2010
NACOGDOCHES, Texas -
Complete Release in PDF Format 
Central Arkansas at Stephen F. Austin
Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010 • 7:00 p.m. (CST)
William R. Johnson Coliseum (7,200) • Nacogdoches, Texas
Radio: None • TV: None • Online: SFA All-Access
Lumberjacks
Record: 10-4 (0-1)
Last 5/Streak: 4-1/L1
Coach: Danny Kaspar
Career: 387-160
At SFA: 168-108
SID: Brian Ross
E-mail: rossbrian@sfasu.edu
Web: sfajacks.com
Bears
Record: 6-9 (0-1)
Last 5/Streak: 1-4/L1
Coach: Rand Chappell
Career: 101-92
At UCA: 299-154
SID: Steve East
E-mail: seast@uca.edu
Web: ucasports.com
GAME INFORMATION
HOME SLC OPENER: The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjack basketball team will play its first home game of the Southland Conference slate Wednesday when the 'Jacks host Central Arkansas. SFA is 10-4 on the season and looking to bounce back from its Southland-opening loss at Sam Houston State. The Bears bring a 6-9 mark to the game and are coming off a home loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
LAST GAME: In a game that featured 16 lead changes and three tied scores, a late shooting slump doomed SFA to a 66-57 loss at Sam Houston State on Saturday. The Lumberjacks held a 49-48 lead after two free throws by Jereal Scott with 6:37 to play, but SFA didn't hit a field goal over the game's final seven minutes, allowing Sam Houston to pull away for the win. The Bearkats were led by junior forward Gilberto Clavell, who scored 21 points and pulled down 12 rebounds. Junior guard Eddie Willliams scored 20 points and registered eight rebounds with four assists to pace SFA. Sam Houston held a seven-point lead and a seven-rebound advantage at the break. The Lumberjacks closed the rebounding gap to one (37-36) by the end of the game, but were unable to hold their late lead. Junior forward Jordan Glynn scored 10 points with 11 rebounds for his Southland-leading seventh double-double of the season. Scott added 11 points and seven boards.
THE BEARS: Central Arkansas' fourth season as a Southland Conference member may turn out to be its best to date. The Bears have finished last in the Southland East each of the last three seasons, but matched their second-best non-conference record over that stretch with a 6-8 mark this year. That mark includes three Division I wins away from home, the most prestigious of which was a 69-49 verdict over Cal State Fullerton at the Etech Lumberjack Classic.
vs. CENTRAL ARKANSAS: SFA is a perfect 4-0 in its 3-year-old series against the Bears. In two previous meetings at Johnson Coliseum, the 'Jacks have won by an average of 18 points and held UCA below 45 points on both occasions. The Bears did pick up their first wins in Nacogdoches earlier this season, defeating Cal State Fullerton and Southern in SFA's inaugural Etech Lumberjack Classic.
COVERAGE: The audio broadcast of Wednesday's game will be available online via a subscription to Yahoo! Sports. Fans can also follow along with live streaming video via SFA All-Access and GameTracker on SFAJacks.com.
UP NEXT: SFA will travel to Thibodaux, La., to take on Nicholls on Saturday. The game against the Colonels, originally scheduled for a 2 p.m. start, will tip at noon from Stopher Gymnasium. Following that game, the 'Jacks will host UT Arlington on Jan. 20. The minutes leading up to tip-off will feature a pregame ceremony during which SFA will unveil its 2009 Southland Conference championship banner.
NEWS AND NOTES
HOME IS WHERE CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE WON: Over the course of their two Southland Conference championship campaigns in the previous two seasons, the Lumberjacks have gone 15-1 in home conference games, including a perfect 8-0 record last season. In all, SFA is 57-24 in Southland games at home in the first nine years of head coach Danny Kaspar's tenure.
SOUTHLAND STREAK: SFA's loss at Sam Houston State snapped a streak of eight straight wins against Southland Conference foes. Including three victories at the Southland Tournament last March, the 'Jacks had not lost against a league opponent since a 59-56 defeat at McNeese State on Feb. 14. The Bearkats are also the first Southland Conference West Division team to defeat SFA since UT Arlington knocked off the 'Jacks early in last year's conference slate. SFA had won six straight and 10 of its last 11 games against SLC West foes.
TEN WINS: SFA entered Southland Conference play with double figures in the win column this season for just the second time in the program's tenure at the Division I level. The Lumberjacks' only other 10-win pre-conference slate came in 2007-08, when they went 12-2 before opening league play.
ON THE REBOUND: Junior Jordan Glynn pulled down a career-high 21 rebounds against Texas College. This marks the first time since 1995 for a Lumberjack to grab at least 20 boards. That performance was turned in by Javan Rouzan in an 80-75 win over Baylor. Glynn has posted seven double-doubles and eight double-figure rebounding games -- both league highs.
STEADY EDDIE: A back injury forced junior guard Eddie Williams to miss SFA's game against Texas College. That marked the first time in his three-year career for Williams to miss action. He had played in all 76 games -- including 32 in each of his first two seasons -- coming into the contest against the Steers. He has played in 77 total games as a Lumberjack.
ALL-TOURNAMENT: After leading SFA in scoring in both its games at the Saint Mary's Shamrock Classic, junior guard Eddie Williams was named to the all-tournament team. This marks the third all-tournament team selection in the last two seasons for Williams. He was chosen to the Drake Hy-Vee Classic squad last season and then earned All-SLC Tournament honors in the postseason.
TOURNAMENT TEAM: Following wins over Howard and Binghamton in the Saint Mary's Shamrock Classic, SFA is 7-1 in four regular-season, tournament-style events over the last two campaigns. The Lumberjacks won two games to capture the Drake Hy-Vee Classic championship last season, then split a pair of contests at the Arkansas Jim Thorpe Classic. Earlier this season, SFA notched wins over Southern and Cal State Fullerton to win the inaugural Etech Lumberjack Classic.
HITTIN' A HUNDRED: The Lumberjacks' 102-point outburst against East Central marks SFA's first triple-digit scoring performance in a regulation game since defeating Paul Quinn, 101-48, in the 2005-06 season. In all, SFA has broken 100 points in regulation six times in 10 seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar. The only Division I opponent to give up triple digits against SFA in that span is Jackson State, who suffered a 103-79 defeat in the 2002-03 campaign. The Lumberjacks' highest-scoring regulation game was a 108-51 win over Oklahoma Panhandle State in the 2003-04 campaign.
BLOCKED UP: Freshman Will Reinke blocked a career-high four shots in SFA's win over East Central. He knocked down three attempts against Texas College. Reinke now has 14 blocks for the season, an average of 1.0 per game, which ranks seventh in the Southland. He has posted four multi-block games this season. Assuming he can maintain his current pace, Reinke will finish the season among the top five on SFA's Division I-era single-season blocks list.
BAD BREAK: The halftime break in SFA's game at Arkansas hurt the Lumberjacks' momentum. SFA went to the locker room with a 33-28 lead but was outscored, 44-36, in the second period of a 72-69 defeat. After shooting 48 percent in the opening half, the 'Jacks slumped to 39 percent after halftime, while the Razorbacks went from 34 percent in first frame to 67 percent following the break. The defeat marks the first time this season for SFA to lose a game that it led at the break.
DOUBLING UP: Earlier this season, junior forward Jordan Glynn put together a streak never before seen in Danny Kaspar's 10 seasons as head coach at SFA. Finishing with his 20-point, 13-rebound performance against East Central, Glynn posted five straight double-doubles and six consecutive games with at least 10 rebounds. Prior to this season, no other Lumberjack on a Kaspar-coached team had put together more than two consecutive double-digit rebounding efforts.
TRIPLE THREAT: The Lumberjacks defended the 3-point arc better than any team in the country in 2008-09. SFA led the nation by holding opponents to 26.6 percent from 3-point range last season. Through 14 games in 2009-10, Lumberjack foes are hitting 38.3 percent from behind the arc. That figure stands 310th out of 334 Division I teams in the country, as ranked by the NCAA through games of Jan. 10.
WIN STREAKS: The loss at Arkansas ended SFA's early-season win streak at five games. SFA's longest winning streak last season was eight games, a run that went through the end of the regular season and Southland Conference Tournament before ending in a first-round NCAA Tournament loss against Syracuse.
ROAD-TESTED: SFA finished non-conference play with a 2-2 record in road games with the only losses coming in the season opener against No. 18 Minnesota and at Arkansas. The Lumberjacks defeated Jackson State and Longwood on the road. SFA was 1-4 in road, non-conference games a year ago with the only win coming at Drake. In 10 seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar, the only other time a Lumberjack team has won more than one road non-conference contest in a single season was 2007-08, when the 'Jacks went 5-2 in such games.
FIRST-TIMERS: SFA opened 2009-10 season with four first-time opponents on the schedule -- Cal State Fullerton, Longwood, Howard and Binghamton. With two wins at the Saint Mary's Shamrock Classic, the 'Jacks finished 4-0 against their first-time foes.
TOURNAMENT TRENDS: SFA went 2-0 in the inaugural Etech Lumberjack Classic, taking wins against Southern and Cal State Fullerton. That performance moved the 'Jacks to 8-0, all-time, in home regular-season tournament contests. The Etech Classic marked SFA's first home tournament since the Tall Pines Classic in the 1976-77 season.
PERFECTION: Junior point guard Denzel Barnes put up the most efficient performance of the young season in SFA's win over Southern. Barnes came off the bench and hit all six of his field goal attempts, including two 3-pointers, to put up a game-high 14 points in just 13 minutes of action. In three games that week, Barnes shot .632 from the field, .714 from 3-point range and went 7-for-7 at the foul stripe to average 12 points per contest.
TWENTY-SOMETHING: Eddie Williams scored 24 points against Jackson State. That marked the first 20-point performance by a Lumberjack this season and the first since Matt Kingsley put up 20 against UTSA in the championship game of last year's Southland Conference Tournament. Including his 20 points at Sam Houston State, Williams has broken the 20-point barrier four times in his career, twice hitting a career-high 25 points last season. Walt Harris has scored 20 or more twice this year, hitting 20 against Cal State Fullerton and 22 at Arkansas. Junior forward Jordan Glynn scored 20 points against East Central.
HALF FULL: SFA trailed at halftime in both its games against Jackson State, but the 'Jacks came back to win in both contests, as they did in their victory at Longwood. SFA is now 3-3 this year when trailing at the half. The 'Jacks went just 1-4 in such situations all of last season.
COMEBACK: SFA didn't hold a lead in the second half of its home win against Jackson State until Jordan Glynn gave the Lumberjacks the lead with 1.1 seconds left. The 'Jacks are 2-4 this season in games when they trail in the final five minutes. SFA came from behind in the final five minutes just one time in the 2008-09 season.
HIGH PERCENTAGE: SFA shot a season-best .585 from the field in its win over Huston-Tillotson. The .585 shooting percentage is SFA's best since shooting .630 in an 82-67 win at Jackson State during the 2007-08 season. The 'Jacks are 7-0 this season when shooting 45 percent or better, including six wins with a shooting percentage above .500.
SLIGHT BLOCKAGE: Coming into its game with Texas Tech, SFA had gone the first two contests of the season without registering a blocked shot. But the 'Jacks swatted two attempts against Tech. The first Lumberjack to record a block in the 2009-10 campaign? Five-foot, three-inch Eric Bell. The SFA point guard knocked down a shot by Tech's John Roberson on the Red Raiders' second possession. It was Bell's fourth career rejection and his first since turning away a shot at Southeastern Louisiana in the 2007-08 season.Two of his five career blocks have come against Big 12 competition, as Bell registered a block in SFA's win at Oklahoma in 2007-08.
HOME-WRECKERS: SFA brought a 15-game homecourt winning streak into its game with Texas Tech, and the Lumberjacks had not lost a home, non-conference game since the 2006-07 campaign. But the Red Raiders left Johnson Coliseum with a 63-61 win, marking the first SFA home loss since a 75-65 defeat against UT Arlington in the second-to-last home game of the 2007-08 season. The Lumberjacks went 13-0 at home last season. SFA is now 30-2 in its last 32 home, non-conference match-ups, and the 'Jacks are 53-4, overall, in such games during 10 seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar.
HOME OPENER: SFA knocked off Jackson State, 62-61, in the 2009-10 home opener. Head coach Danny Kaspar's teams are 10-0 in home openers at SFA. The last time an SFA team failed to win its home opener was a 67-55 loss to Texas A&M in 1998.
RECORD LOWS IN MINNESOTA: SFA's 82-42 loss at Minnesota goes into the books as the worst margin of defeat in 10 seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar. The previous record was a 31-point defeat (92-61) at Arizona in the first game of the 2001-02 season. In all, the 'Jacks have suffered just 12 losses by 20 or more points, and only two by 30 or more, in 264 games under Kaspar.
SEASON OPENERS: SFA is 6-4 in season-opening games under head coach Danny Kaspar. The Lumberjacks have compiled an 11-13 record in season openers as a Division I program (since 1986-87 season). SFA is 1-4 under Kaspar when opening on the road and is just 1-7, in all, as a Division I program when playing the season opener on the road. The Lumberjacks' only season-opening road win in the last 23 seasons was an 82-72 verdict at Tulsa to start the 2005-06 campaign.
RANK AND FILE: The Lumberjacks received 32 votes in the latest CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll. SFA finished three spots outside the final poll of 2008-09 with 30 votes. Three weeks before that, the 'Jacks fell out of the poll for the first time in over a year. SFA spent 25 consecutive weeks in the poll after breaking in during December of the 2007-08 season. SFA began last season 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. In December of last season, SFA was ranked No. 10, marking the earliest move into the top 10 for the `Jacks since the poll began.
FOUR OF A KIND: Former McLennan Community College players Walt Harris, Jordan Glynn, Orren Tims and Eric Bell make SFA the only Division I team in the country with four players from the same junior college on its roster.
BIG WILL: At six feet, 10 inches tall, Will Reinke is the tallest player signed in Danny Kaspar's nine-year tenure at SFA. The only other Lumberjack over 6-9 to play under Kaspar is Stephen Cobb, a 6-11 center who was on the team when Kaspar took over.
ATTENDANCE: SFA ranked second in the Southland Conference last season in average attendance, drawing 3,140 fans per home game. So far this season, the 'Jacks average 1,995 fans per contest.
SAFE AT HOME: In nine-plus seasons under head coach Danny Kaspar, the Lumberjacks have compiled a 107-28 (.793) record in the William R. Johnson Coliseum. SFA is 303-119 (.718) all-time in the Coliseum. The Lumberjacks finished the 2008-09 home slate with a perfect 13-0 record, marking the fourth straight season and the sixth time in seven years for SFA to post double-digit wins at home.
SCOUTING THE BEARS
FOR THE RECORD: Central Arkansas comes into Wednesday's game with a 6-9 overall record and an 0-1 start to Southland Conference play. The streaky Bears are coming off a 64-59 home loss against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and have lost four of their last five games. That run comes on the heels of a four-game win streak that started with an upset win over Cal State Fullerton at the Etech Lumberjack Classic and included a 10-point road victory over Tennessee-Martin. Prior to rattling off that four-game streak, UCA had dropped five straight games. The Bears are 1-5 in true road contests this season and sport a 2-0 record on neutral floors.
LAST GAME: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi finished with a 40-25 edge in rebounding and outscored the Bears, 14-4, in second-chance points on the way to a 64-59 win in the Southland opener for both teams on Saturday. The Islanders also enjoyed a healthy advantage at the foul line, hitting 19 of their 23 attempts, while UCA shot only 11 free throws and connected on just three. The Bears actually held a 29-28 lead at the half, but A&M-Corpus went 14-for-17 at the line after the break, while UCA was just 2-of-9, wiping out the Bears' 54-percent effort from the field in the second period. Kevin Palmer went 11-of-12 from the stripe and finished with a game-high 23 points for the Islanders. Chris Poellnitz scored 17 points to pace UCA.
KEY NUMBERS: The Bears rank last in the Southland Conference in scoring at 64.7 points per game, but they are the league's fourth-best defensive team, giving up 66.2 points per outing. UCA's .414 shooting percentage is last in the conference, and the Bears rank 11th in the 12-team Southland in 3-point field goal percentage at .300.
LEADERS: Tadre Sheppard and Chris Poellnitz are tied for the team scoring lead with 12.5 points per game. Mitch Rueter and Jared Rehmel give the Bears four double-digit scorers with 11.4 and 10.3 points per game, respectively. Sheppard leads UCA and ranks sixth in the Southland with 8.1 rebounds per game. His .596 shooting percentage is second-best in the league, and he ranks fifth in the conference in blocked shots with 1.4 per contest. Sheppard leads the conference in offensive rebounding with 3.9 boards per outing. Rehmel ranks third in the Southland in minutes played with 34 per game.
-- SFA --
