STEVENS POINT, Wis. – The No. 19 UW-Stevens Point men's basketball team looks to extend its nine-game winning streak against Edgewood when it faces the Eagles in Madison on Tuesday night.
THE BASICS
Who: No. 19 UW-Stevens Point (4-4) at Edgewood (1-7)
When: Tuesday, Dec. 22 – 7 p.m.
Where: Madison, Wis. – Todd Wehr Edgedome
FOLLOW THE GAMELive videoLive statsLive audio LAST TIME OUTFifth-ranked St. Thomas locked down No. 19 UW-Stevens Point 56-38 on Tuesday evening at Bennett Court at Quandt Fieldhouse. The Tommies held the Pointers to 28.3 percent shooting and had three players in double figures in the game.
St. Thomas led 35-30 with 15:23 remaining before going on an extended 17-4 run to go up by 18 with just over three minutes to play. The game was UW-Stevens Point's fourth already this season against ranked teams.
Grant Shaeffer, Taylor Montero and Cortez Tillman combined for 40 of St. Thomas' 56 points in the game.
Sean McGann (Baraboo, WI/Baraboo) led the Pointers with nine points, while
Brett Tauber (Madison, WI/Memorial) and
Zack Goedeke (Valders, WI/Valders) each had eight.
ABOUT UW-STEVENS POINT | HOME | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATSAfter opening the season 3-1, UW-Stevens Point has dropped three of its last four games since the start of December. Two of the three losses came to top-five teams (No. 1 Augustana, No. 5 St. Thomas).
McGann leads the Pointers and ranks sixth in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) in scoring at 14.6 points per game. Fellow senior
Stephen Pelkofer (Hales Corner, WI/Whitnall) also averages in double figures at 11.8 points per game. The pair have led UWSP in scoring in five of eight games, while Goedeke (twice) and
Ethan Bublitz (Jackson, WI/Kettle Moraine Lutheran) (once) have each also led the Pointers in scoring.
DEFENSE DOES ITS PARTUW-Stevens Point leads the WIAC and ranks in a tie for 27th nationally in scoring defense, allowing an average of 63.5 points per game. The Pointers have held their last two opponents under 60 points and top-ranked Augustana is the only team to score over 70 on UWSP this season.
The Pointers are 4-0 when scoring over 60 points this season and 0-4 when scoring less than 60.
SCORING BY CLASSOf UW-Stevens Point's 468 points, 211 (45.1 percent) have come from seniors McGann and Pelkofer, 117 (25.0 percent) have come from a group of five freshmen, 88 (18.8 percent) are from the two-man sophomore class of Goedeke and
Luke Zuiker (Marshfield, WI/Marshfield), and 52 (11.1 percent) have been scored by four juniors.
ON THE ROADUW-Stevens Point is 1-2 on the road so far this season. The Pointers opened the season with a 69-61 win at UW-Superior and lost back-to-back road games to Augustana and North Central earlier this month.
UW-Stevens Point has won at least 10 road games in each of the last three seasons and is 32-8 (.800) away from home in the same time span.
COACHING CONNECTIONFormer UW-Stevens Point standouts Dan and
Tyler Tillema have spent plenty of time on the court together but on Tuesday night, they will come up against each other as coaches. Tyler, the younger of the two, is in his first season on the coaching staff at UW-Stevens Point after playing for the Pointers from 2009-14. Tyler finished his career ninth on the UWSP all-time scoring list (1,456 points) and was the WIAC Player of the Year and a D3hoops.com First Team All-American in his senior season. Dan played at UWSP from 2009-12 after transferring from the University of Minnesota Duluth and was a First Team All-WIAC selection as a senior. In three seasons together as Pointers, the pair went 75-16 and were part of the 2009-10 national championship team.
IN THE POLLS | D3HOOPS.COM TOP 25UW-Stevens Point remains at No. 19 in the D3hoops.com rankings, as there was not a new poll this week.
ABOUT EDGEWOOD | HOME | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATSEdgewood has opened the season 1-7 through its first eight games, including a 1-5 mark in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play. The Eagles lost their first five games of the season all by double figures before breaking through with an 84-78 win at Dominican on Dec. 9. Since then, Edgewood lost a pair of home games to Benedictine and Concordia-Chicago.
In the loss to Concordia-Chicago, Edgewood shot a season-best 49.2 percent from the field and led by as many as 14 in the second half. However, the Cougars forced the Eagles into 24 turnovers and went on an 18-2 run late on.
The Eagles are facing their third top-25 opponent this season. Edgewood fell 99-53 to No. 23 UW-Oshkosh on the road on Nov. 24 and lost 77-57 to No. 10 Benedictine on Dec. 12.
Junior guard Adam Freitag leads Edgewood in scoring (12.6 ppg) and is shooting 40.4 percent (21-for-52) from behind the arc. Junior forward Trevon Ampe averages 10.2 points per game and leads the Eagles in rebounding (6.3 rpg). Ampe is coming off a 21-point, nine-rebound performance against Concordia-Chicago.
Seven Edgewood players average between 4.0 and 8.4 points per game. The Eagles are averaging 65.2 points per game through eight games but their opponents are scoring 82.2 points a game.
THE COACHESBob Semling is in his 11th season as the head coach at UW-Stevens Point and has won four national championships with the Pointers. He led the Pointers to national titles in 2010 and 2015 as a head coach and was an assistant on the back-to-back national title teams of 2004 and 2005. Semling has a career record of 246-58 (.809), including a 134-25 (.843) mark in WIAC play. His .818 career winning percentage entering this season was the highest among active NCAA Division III coaches and ranks fourth all-time among all divisions for coaches with a minimum of 10 seasons as head coach. He is a two-time D3hoops.com and National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) National Coach of the Year (2010, 2015) and a five-time WIAC Coach of the Year.
Justin Meyer is in his fourth season as the head coach at Edgewood and his 14th season overall with the program. He holds a career record of 35-53 (.398) as head coach of the Eagles. Last season, Meyer led the Eagles to the semifinals of the NACC Tournament and an overall record of 14-13, including a 12-8 mark in conference play. In his 11 seasons on the Edgewood staff prior to becoming head coach, Meyer serves as an assistant coach, recruiting coordinator and head assistant coach, before being promoted to associate head coach prior to the 2009-10 season.
SERIES NOTESUW-Stevens Point holds a commanding 22-3 advantage in the all-time series with Edgewood since the teams first met in 1987.
The Pointers have won the last nine meetings against the Eagles. The last Edgewood win was on Jan. 28, 2006 when the Eagles edged the Pointers 67-66 at the Todd Wehr Edgedome.
Of the nine straight UWSP wins in the series, eight have come by double digits. The one single-digit win was UW-Stevens Point's 69-60 overtime win at Bennett Court. The Eagles overcame a seven-point deficit in the final minute of regulation but
Alex Richard (Spring Green, WI/River Valley) scored five of his career-high 25 points in overtime as No. 11 UW-Stevens Point outscored Edgewood 11-2 in the extra five minutes.
