Men's Basketball: Ohio Northern (5-5 Overall) at Denison (5-4 Overall)
Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2015 - 7 pm, Livingston Gymnasium, Granville, Ohio
Wednesday's Preview: Ohio Northern enters this evening's contest after an 11-day layoff during Christmas Break ... The Polar Bears last played on Dec. 19, when they defeated Muskingum 90-87 in the ONU Sports Center ... Junior Aron Thress scored a career-high 21 points, sophomore Travis Feitshans scored 14 points and grabbed a game-high six rebounds, junior Konnor Baker added 12 points and also pulled down a game-high six rebounds, junior Devon Allen added 11 points for Northern, including two huge free throws with 10 seconds remaining in the contest, and junior Joey Hurless added a game-high 10 assists and finished with nine points for ONU ... The Polar Bears are 2-2 on the road this season ... Through 10 games this season, Thress leads ONU in scoring at 14.5 ppg ... Allen is second in scoring at 13.9 ppg, Baker is third at 11.0, freshman Ryan Bruns is fourth at 10.3 ppg and Feitshans is fifth at 10.1 ppg ... Baker, Thress and Feitshans lead the team in rebounding at 5.9, 5.7 and 5.5 rpg, respectively ... Hurless leads the nation in assists by an incredibly wide margin, averaging 9.5 apg ... Not other player averages more than 7.8 pg and is his 95 assists this season is 24 more than his closest competitor nationally, which is Adam Marlow of California-Santa Cruz ... DU will be playing its fourth consecutive home game and is coming off a 75-68 loss to Wittenberg on Dec. 12 ... Jett Speelman leads DU in scoring at 19.2 ppg ... David Meurer is second at 16.9 ppg and Darius White is third at 12.4 ppg ... Matthew Bauer leads the team in rebounding at 7.2 rpg to go with his 4.9 ppg scoring average.
Ohio Northern Probable Starters (2015-16 stats):
G - #12 Devon Allen, Jr. (13.9 ppg, 32 3FG)
G - #1 Joey Hurless, Jr. (7.8 ppg, 9.5 apg)
F - #14 Konnor Baker, Jr. (11.0 ppg, 5.9 rpg)
C - #40 Aron Thress, Jr. (14.5 ppg, 5.7 rpg)
F - #33 Travis Feitshans, Jr. (10.1 ppg, 5.5 rpg)
ONU Statistical Leaders
| Scoring |
Rebounding |
3FGs |
Assists | Steals | ||||||||||||||
| 1. | Thress |
14.5 |
1. | Baker |
5.9 | 1. | Allen | 32 |
1. | Hurless |
95 | 1. |
Hurless |
17 |
||||
| 2. | Allen | 13.9 | 2. |
Thress | 5.7 |
2. |
Baker | 10 | 2. | Feitshans | 18 | 2. |
Allen |
14 |
||||
| 3. |
Baker | 11.0 |
3. |
Feitshans | 5.5 | 3. |
Hurless |
9 | 3. | Allen |
16 |
3. |
Baker |
11 |
||||
| 4. | Bruns | 10.3 | 4. | Bruns | 4.4 | |||||||||||||
| 5. | Feitshans | 10.1 |
All-Time Series: ONU leads the all-time series by a 16-11 margin ... The two teams have not played since 1984, when ONU won at Denison 58-47 when the Big Red was still a member of the OAC ... ONU has won 7 straight games in the series.
ONU head coach Kevin Byrne: Byrne in his fourth season at ONU and with a 46-43 record, a winning percentage of .514.