ST. LOUIS, Mo.—The William Woods men's basketball team will look to sweep the regular season series against Missouri Baptist University on Saturday afternoon. Tip-off will start at 4:00 p.m.
The Owls (6-19; 4-11 AMC), are coming off an 84-54 loss on Thursday night against Lyon College. The team shot 33.3 percent in the game, while the Scots shot an astounding 64.9 percent from the field, including 75 percent (9-of-12), from beyond the three-point arc.
Senior
Seth Thomas led the Owls on offense, scoring a team-high 11 points and went 5-of-6 from the free throw line, while
Blake Burgess and
Dontre' Jenkins netted 10 points each.
On the season, the Owls are scoring just over 74 points per game, shooting 42.3 percent from the field and 33.2 percent from downtown. The Owls have made 190 three-pointers on the season, which ranks them 12
th in the NAIA and first in the American Midwest Conference.
Jonathon Nutt leads the team, averaging 14.4 points, shooting 80.4 percent from the free throw line and leads the squad in assists with 61. Burgess continues to have a successful senior year, scoring 13.2 points, netting 45 percent of his shots and has grabbed down a team-high 135 rebounds.
Patrick Lewis (9.2 ppg) and
Nate Bitner (9.1 ppg) continue to be solid players for the Owls on offense, as the duo is putting up just under 10 points per game, while Thomas has upped his season average to 8.0 points and is netting a team-high 39.8 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.
The last time these two teams met was back on Jan. 11
th, where WWU controlled the majority of the game against the Spartans and went on for the 77-66 victory. The Owls shot 52.1 percent from the field, led by Burgess scoring 18 points, while Nutt and Thomas added 11.
The William Woods defense held MBU to 37.7 shooting, but the Spartans did have a second half run in them early in the second half, thanks to senior Kalvin Lewis, who finished the game with a career-high 31 points on 11-of-18 shooting.
Missouri Baptist (5-18; 4-9 AMC), have lost three straight games, dropping its most recent game against No. 3-ranked Freed-Hardeman University, 92-74.
The Spartans are scoring 70.6 points on the season, but are surrendering 79.3 points and allowing teams to shoot 46.5 percent from the floor. The offense is led by Chris Buzzell averaging 15.5 points and is second on the team, netting 45.3 percent of his shots from the floor.
Lewis is averaging 15.1 points on the season and leads the team in assists with 68, while grabbing down 101 rebounds (4.4 rpg). Corey McKinney will be another player to keep an eye out for, as he has moved his season average to 10.3 points, hitting a team-high 54.8 percent of his shots from floor and has totaled a team-high 143 rebounds (6.2 rpg).
"We need to be more aggressive on offense against Missouri Baptist," said head coach
Nick Totta. "I think we have to really demand more of ourselves at this point in the season. It is a long year, you start to feel it physically and that is when we need to rise above mentally," he added.
Fans stay updated on wwuowls.com tomorrow evening for a full recap and score from St. Louis, Mo.
