Northeastern State vs. Southeastern Oklahoma | Nov. 11 at 3 p.m.
Northeastern State vs. Northwestern Oklahoma | Nov. 13 at 3 p.m.
Live Stats | Game Notes
The headline: After opening their season on Monday with an exhibition contest at Tulsa to open head coach
Jason Tinsley's third season, the RiverHawks will be playing in year-three of the MIAA/GAC Challenge which has pitted NSU against Northwestern Oklahoma and Southeastern Oklahoma. In the first two years of the crossover, all three teams have split the series with each other.
Last time out for NSU: Northeastern State was only outscored by three in the final 20 minutes but they could not recover from a slow start at Tulsa falling 84-52 at the Reynolds Center on Monday night.
Tanner Mouse led the RiverHawks with 14 points as NSU forced 29 turnovers on the Golden Hurricane. The RiverHawks were out-rebounded by Tulsa 58-to-37 but NSU had two more offensive boards with 18 for the night.
Erick Broadnax led NSU with seven rebounds and had a game high four blocks.
Last time out for Southeastern: Southeastern Oklahoma has played in three (D1) exhibitions before the regular season. The Savage Storm played a close 80-73 at UTEP in El Paso, Texas and lost by seven (82-75) at Oral Robert. On Nov. 5, Southeastern lost 62-41 at Texas State.
Scouting Southeastern: The Savage Storm was picked to finish in tenth based on the GAC preseason poll that was release prior to the season. Last season, SE finished the year with a 11-17 record under sixth year head coach Kelly Green. The Storm returns three of its top four scorers from a season ago, including Anton Cook who turned in 15.0 ppg and earned honorable mention All-GAC recognition last season.
Last time out for Northwestern: The Rangers traveled to USAO on Nov. 3 for an exhibition and edged out an 88-81 win. No individual stats on NWOSU were kept by either team but they shot 45.5-percent from the field and went 9-for-20 from long-range. The Rangers trailed by one at the half before scoring 50 in the second half to get past the Drovers on the road.
Scouting Northwestern: The Rangers were picked to finish in ninth place in the GAC based on its preseason poll and they are under the leadership of first year head coach Shawn Dirden who arrived from North Dakota. Northwestern Oklahoma return nine players from the 2015-16 squad, including three seniors in Deiondray Martin, Austin Klug and Adrian Motley. Motley, who was a second-team All-Conference selection, led the Rangers in scoring with 17.5 PPG, good enough for fourth in the GAC. The Rangers also return 3-point specialist Martin, who is the leading 3-point shooter as far as percentage goes in the conference, as well as point guard Brandon Green, who finished second in the league last year in assists.
The big 2-1: Northeastern State will carry a roster of 21 student-athletes to open the season with. Of that number, NSU will be redshirting six, and will have 15 others in uniform. NSU will have five returning from last season's team who played last year and 12 in-comers to the RiverHawks program.
Montre' Williams is the lone NSU player with two years of playing experience in a RiverHawks uniform.
Lucky 13: The RiverHawks will be looking to prove many doubters in the MIAA wrong after being picked 13th out of the 14 teams in the league. The selection mirrored the team's finish last season where they went 8-18 overall. This year's preseason poll was voted on by the MIAA's 14 head coaches and they selected Northwest Missouri to win this year's league title.
