Game 28: Northeastern State (8-19, 4-14 MIAA) vs. Washburn (19-8, 13-5 MIAA) at 3:30 p.m. | February 24, 2018
Tahlequah, Okla. | NSU Event Center 
 

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Live Stats for Media	sidearmstats.com/nsuok/mbball/media
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Live Streaming Video	TheMIAANetwork.com ($)
Play-by-Play	Bill Huddleston
	Northeastern State Game Notes

The Series 
Northeastern State leads the overall series 7-5 with the Ichabods but has dropped their last three in a row.  In Tahlequah, Northeastern State won its first four meetings with Washburn until they took last season's meeting, 67-55.  Both teams have met once in the NCAA Tournament during NSU's 2003 National Championship season.

The Coaches
Mark Downey was introduced as NSU's tenth men's basketball coach on April 11, 2017 and carries a 212-122 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.

Brett Ballard (52-37) is in his first season as head coach at Washburn and was named on April 6, 2016 after spending the 2014-15 to 2016-17 seasons as an assistant coach with the Wake Forest basketball program after working under head coach Danny Manning 2014-17 seasons and at the University of Tulsa during the 2012-14 seasons. Before joining Tulsa, Ballard spent two seasons as the head basketball coach at Baker University going 33-30 overall, including a 21-12 mark in his final season at the helm in 2011-12.

Last Time Out for NSU
Northeastern State survived to fight another day thanks to a Jamir Andrews floater with three seconds to go to beat Emporia State 68-66 on Thursday evening at the NSU Event Center.  The win kept the RiverHawks' postseason hopes alive heading in to the final game of the season.  Andrews had 14 of his 16 points in the second half including a dagger three-pointer to put NSU ahead by 66-64 with 35 seconds remaining to pave the way for their win over the Hornets.  Andrews' late heroics overshadowed a solid performance by Josh Bougher who had his second double-double of the year with a team game high 12 rebounds and 18 points.  Tanner Mouse and Montre' Williams both had 11 points in the win.

Last Time Out for Washburn
The Washburn Ichabods pulled within one with 2:12 to go, but Central Oklahoma hit 10 of its last 13 free throws as the Ichabods fell 73-65 to the Bronchos on Thursday. Javion Blake and Cameron Wiggins each scored 13 to lead the Ichabods.  The Ichabods finished 22 of 59 from the field for the game shooting 12 of 28 in the second half and 11 of 14 from the free throw line.

Road to the MIAA Tournament
Two things need to happen for the RiverHawks to make next week's MIAA Tournament opening round.
1.     A Northeastern State win over Washburn.
2.     A Missouri Western loss to Lindenwood.

The Graduate 
NSU graduate student Jamir Andrews is averaging 17.1 points a game in MIAA play which tied for sixth best through 17 conference games played.  Overall, Andrews has ten games this season where he has scored at least 20-points, and is averaging 20.6 per game in the last three contests.

Up next
Northeastern State could be playing in the MIAA Tournament, which will be at a campus site on Feb. 27.