Game 25: Northeastern State (7-17, 3-12 MIAA) at Fort Hays State (14-10, 7-8 MIAA) at 7:30 p.m. | February 15, 2018
Hays, Kan. | Gross Memorial Coliseum
 

Live Stats	sidearmstats.com/fhsu/mbball/
Live Stats for Media	sidearmstats.com/fhsu/mbball/media
Live Audio	GoRiverHawksGo.com
Live Streaming Audio	portal.stretchinternet.com/nsu/
Live Streaming Video	TheMIAANetwork.com ($)
Play-by-Play	Scott Pettus
	Northeastern State Game Notes

The Series 
Northeastern State trails the overall series 8-5 to Fort Hays State and on the road they are 1-4 overall.  The RiverHawks won 75-72 in their first meeting in Hays during the 2013-14 season, at Northeastern State the series is 3-3 overall.

The Coaches
Mark Downey was introduced as NSU's tenth men's basketball coach on April 11, 2017 and carries a 211-120 overall head coaching record, with four NCAA Division II Tournament Appearances, and has been named Coach of the Year six times.  Downey comes to NSU after two seasons at Fort Wayne (NCAA DI) as the program's top assistant on the bench, and has helped the Mastodons to appearances in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) and the NIT, while going 44-23.  Prior to Fort Wayne, Downey spent the 2014-15 season at Bowling Green where they went 20-12, and he helped direct them into the second round of the CIT.

Mark Johnson enters his 17th season as head coach of the Fort Hays State University men's basketball program in 2017-18. He is the all-time coaching wins leader in FHSU history with a career record of 336-159 in 17 seasons, ranking among the top 25 active NCAA Division II men's basketball coaches in winning percentage (.684). Johnson has led the Tigers to seven NCAA Tournament appearances in his time at FHSU.

Last Time Out for NSU
Northeastern State's Montre' Williams scored a season high 22 points and eclipsed the 1,000 point mark but was not enough in a 82-78 loss to Nebraska-Kearney in MIAA action at the NSU Event Center on Saturday afternoon.  Jamir Andrews was NSU's second leading scorer with 18 points and Trent Cantrell matched his career high with 16 points off the bench.  On top of Williams' 22 points, he dished out eight assists, which was a season high for the four-year letter winner, and one short matching a career high.  NSU had a 37-to-33 edge on the glass with Andrews leading the way with six.

Last Time Out for Fort Hays State
Central Oklahoma outscored Fort Hays State by 20 in the second half to win on its home floor 81-57 on Saturday afternoon.  It was the largest margin of victory for the Bronchos in the all-time series history with the Tigers.  KeShawn Wilson produced a season-high 16 points, tying teammate Brady Werth for high-point honors among Tigers. Wilson hit four 3-point field goals in the game, while Werth went 8-of-16 from the field. Aaron Nicholson was one point shy of double figures, scoring all nine of his points on three 3-point field goals in the first half.  The Tigers fought foul trouble in the post all day long as Hadley Gillum fouled out with just six points.

1,000 Points
On Saturday, Feb. 10, Montre' Williams was the first NSU men's basketball player since 2014 to score 1,000 career points in a RiverHawks' uniform.   Williams has 1,011 career points in 104 games played at Northeastern State.  Bryton Hobbs (2012-14) was the last NSU player to hit the scoring milestone, finishing with 1,182 points.

The Graduate 
NSU graduate student Jamir Andrews is averaging 16.3 points a game in MIAA play which is third best through 15 conference games played.  Overall, Andrews has eight games this season where he has scored at least 20-points, and is averaging 21.3 per game in the last three contests.

Up next
Northeastern State heads Nebraska-Kearney next for their final regular season road game on Saturday at 4 p.m.