HANNIBAL, Mo.—In search of hosting its first American Midwest Conference tournament game in program history, the William Woods University men's basketball team will need to pick up an important victory on the road, as the Owls pay a visit to Hannibal-LaGrange on Thursday night. Tip-off will start at 7:30 p.m.
The Owls (7-21; 5-13 AMC), currently hold down the ninth seed in the AMC standings, trailing the No. 8 seed Mid-Continent Cougars by one game and the No. 7 seed Missouri Baptist Spartans also by one game.
Its last time out, the Owls dropped its second game in a row at home against the Cougars, falling 84-78 on Senior Night. The seniors (
Blake Burgess,
Dontre' Jenkins,
Jonathon Nutt,
Seth Thomas) compiled 67 of the teams 78 points, led by Burgess, who closed out his final regular season home game in impressive fashion, as the Jacksonville, Ill., native scored a career-high 28 points (11-of-18 shooting) and grabbed down a game-high 13 points.
Thomas scored all his points from downtown, hitting 6-of-12 from beyond the arc, finishing with 18 points, while Nutt added 16 on 7-of-11 shooting and Jenkins scored five points and totaled five boards.
On the season, Nutt leads the offense, scoring 14.6 points, shooting 79.2 percent from the free-throw line and has dished out 67 assists. Burgess, is averaging 19 points the past four games, which has upped his season average to 14.1 points, hitting 45.9 percent of his shots from the field and has totaled a team-high 161 rebounds (6.0 rpg).
Meanwhile,
Patrick Lewis (8.6 ppg),
Nate Bitner (8.3 ppg) and Thomas (8.1 ppg), will look to improve on their season averages and be impact players on Thursday against the Trojans.
The last time these two teams met, the Owls controlled Hannibal-LaGrange (4-22; 4-14 AMC), all evening, holding the Trojans to just 38 points and 26.4 percent shooting from the floor and eventually cruising to a 62-38 victory. Burgess led the Owls in that game, scoring a game-high 23 points on 8-of-10 shooting and added nine rebounds.
The Trojans have lost seven out of its last eight games, but have played better since a 31-point loss against No. 4-ranked Columbia College back on Feb. 8, as the Trojans have gone 1-3 since then, defeating Harris-Stowe 71-55 and have only fallen to Lyon College (55-44), Williams Baptist (68-65) and Missouri Baptist (71-68) by a combined 17 points.
Offensively, HLG is scoring 60.5 points and shooting 42.8 percent from the field, but are surrendering 71.0 points and teams to shoot 44 percent from the floor. Daniel Piper is scoring a team-high 11.6 points, while Jay Jones, who is coming off a career-high 23 points against the Spartans, is totaling 10.6 points per game and leads the team in assists with 70.
"It is an important game for us, as we have the possibility to host a conference game," said head coach
Nick Totta. "You always want to have a reason to keep playing and the chance to host the programs first tournament game really does that for us."
Fans stay updated on wwuowls.com tomorrow night for a full recap and score on this conference showdown.
