Men's Basketball | 2/21/2025 10:24:00 AM
GAME 26
Emporia State (9-16, 6-10 MIAA) at Newman (13-12, 6-10 MIAA)
Saturday, Feb. 22 • 3:30 p.m. • Wichita, Kan. • Fugate Gymnasium
Series Record: ESU leads 29-13 •
Last Meeting: ESU 75, at NU 64 (2/17/2024)
Radio: Hornet Sports Network KFFX-FM (104.9)/1490AM Topeka/103.7FM Kansas City
Internet Audio:
kvoe.com |
Television: None |
Internet Video:
The MIAA Network
Live Stats |
Ticket Info |
Complete Notes in pdf
Up Next: Missouri Western • Wednesday, Feb. 26 • 7:30 p.m. • Emporia, Kan. • WL White Auditorium
DOGFIGHT IN THE AIR CAPITAL
Emporia State travels to Wichita for a key MIAA showdown with Newman. The Hornets are 0.001 ahead of the Jets in KPI for a spot in the MIAA Tournament.
ABOUT THE HORNETS
Emporia State is 9-16, 6-10 in the MIAA. In MIAA only games ESU leads the league in opponent three-point percentage, is third in defensive rebounds and fourth in field goal percentage defense.
Parker Day is third and
Karyiek Dixon is fifth in MIAA only rebounding.
ABOUT THE JETS
Newman is 13-12, 6-10 in the MIAA. The Jets lead the league in offensive rebounds and are second in rebound margin. Sam Somerhalder is eighth in the MIAA in rebounding.
ABOUT THE COACHES
Tom Billeter is 499-290 in his 27th season as a head coach and is 9-16 in his first season at Emporia State after going 394-224 in 21 years at Augustana. With the Vikings he won the 2016 National Championship, went to nine NCAA Tournaments, won three regular season NSIC Championships, two NSIC Tourney Championships, and 18 consecutive winning seasons. This is his first meeting with Newman.
R.J. Allen is 82-132 in his eighth season at Newman. He is 3-9 against Emporia State.
UP NEXT
The Hornets return to White Auditorium for the final time this year to take on Missouri Western on Wednesday, February 26. Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m.
LAST TIME OUT
The Hornet men shot over 50% in the game, but were unable to contain the Lopers on the road, falling 87-75 against Nebraska-Kearney on Saturday.
The game started with the Hornets and Lopers trading baskets with Neb.-Kearney holding a slim 10-9 lead at the 15:42 mark of the first half. The Lopers built their largest first half lead over the next two minutes, scoring nine straight points to take a 19-9 lead.
Emporia State answered back with a 10-2 scoring run of their own, trimming the Loper lead to 21-19 coming out of the under ten media timeout. The Hornets trimmed the deficit to as little as one on a three from
Brayson Laube at the 3:11 mark before going to the break trailing 42-39.
A three-point play by
Chris Harris evened the score at 42-42 at the 19:48 mark. The Lopers led 56-51 with 15:09 mark before Emporia State put together eight straight points to take a 59-56 lead. UNK used an 11-2 run to take a 67-61 lead with 9:07 remaining. Emporia State was able to cut the deficit to 73-70 on a layup from Laube with 4:55 left. The Lopers answered with a 9-2 run to take an 82-72 advantage with just over two minutes remaining before closing out the 87-75 win.
Arhman Lewis led Emporia State with 16 points while Malik Edwards and
Brayson Laube had 15 and 13 points respectively.
SERIES HISTORY
Emporia State leads the series 29-13 all-time. The Hornets have won eight in a row by an average of 23.1 points.
LAST TIME VS NEWMAN
Playing with just eight players Emporia State fell behind early before taking control in the second half of a 75-64 win at Newman on Saturday. The Hornets were held scoreless over the first 4:22 of the game as the Jets went up 7-0 and took their biggest lead of the half at 21-10 with 8:41 left.
Cael McGee scored six straight points in 71 seconds to get the Hornets within 37-32 with 1:08 left in the half. Newman led 54-52 before the Hornets used a 7-0 run to take the lead for good.
Kaden Evans buried a three-pointer to give ESU a 59-54 lead with 9:04 remaining. Newman got within four points at 66-62 with 3:23 left before Emporia State used a 9-2 run to go up 75-62 with 30 seconds left.
Owen Long scored a game high 23 points with five assists, Alijah Comither scored 18 points, Evans scored 11 and McGee added ten points.
Darius Yohe finished with a game high 11 rebounds.
CLOSERS
The Hornets have won 47 of their last 50 games when leading at the 5:00 minute mark of the second half. They are 9-1 under Coach Billeter.
KPI UPDATE
With an unbalanced 19 game schedule this year the MIAA will be using the KPI Ranking system for MIAA Tournament seeding at the end of the regular season. KPI ranks every team's wins and losses on a positive-to-negative scale, where the worst-possible loss receives a value of roughly around -1.0 and the best-possible win receives a value of roughly 1.0. KPI then averages these scores across a season to give a score to a team's winning percentage. The formula uses opponent's winning percentage, opponent's strength of schedule, scoring margin, pace of game, location, and opponent's KPI ranking.
1500 AND COUNTING
The Hornets have won 1,519 games in their 120th year of playing basketball. They are ranked 16th in total wins among active NCAA Division II schools.
CENTURY MARK
Emporia State's 100-73 win over Newman last year marked the 104th time the Hornets have cracked the century mark in their history.
The Hornets scored at least 100 points 60 times under coach Ron Slaymaker (827 total games in 28 seasons), 26 times under David Moe (288 games in 10 seasons), eight times under Craig Doty (173 games in six seasons), five times under Shaun Vandiver (199 games in seven seasons), three times under Gus Fish (602 games in 25 seasons) and once under Marc Comstock (82 games in three seasons).
FRIENDLY CONFINES
The Hornets are 441-207 (.681) since 1979 in White Auditorium. Emporia State has won 226 of their last 328 games (.689) in White Auditorium dating back to the 2002-03 season. In the last 35 years, they have twice had home court winning streaks of at least 20 games. The first was 23 games from 1985-87 followed by a school record 25 game streak from February 12, 2003-January 1, 2005.
REGIONALLY SPEAKING
The NCAA Central Region is made up of teams in the MIAA, Northern Sun and Great American Conferences. Overall in non-conference action the NSIC is 62-40, the MIAA is 78-52 and the GAC is 39-31. This year the MIAA is 16-24 against the region with a 10-12 record against the NSIC and a 6-12 mark against the GAC.
Currently there is only one MIAA school, one GAC school and eight NSIC schools in the top ten of the Central Regional Rankings.
The MIAA is one of three Division II conferences, and the only one in the Central Region, in which every team's opponents winning percentage is at .500 or above with a winning conference record against D2 opponents.
Seven of the last ten national champions have come from the Central Region, including coach Billeter's 2016 win at Augustana, and the region has been represented in eight of the last ten national championship games.
LAST THREE+ YEARS
For the first time in school history Emporia State recorded three straight years with at least a .500 record in MIAA play between 2021-2024. Starting in 2020-21 the Hornets have gone 59-45 in MIAA play with a 81-56 overall record.
HORNETS RANK IN NATION IN ATTENDANCE
In 17 home games last year the Hornets averaged 1,224 fans per game to rank 16th in the nation among the over 300 NCAA Division II basketball playing schools. It continued a string of 20 straight years, not counting COVID, ranking in the top 25 in attendance for Emporia State. The Hornets drew 19,627 total fans for an average of 1,402 fans to their 14 home games in White Auditorium during the 2021-22 season to rank seventh nationally.
HORNETS IN THE POST SEASON
The 2022-23 season marked Emporia State's third trip to the NCAA Tournament in 33 years as a member of the NCAA Division II. Prior to joining the NCAA, Emporia State made ten trips to Kansas City for the NAIA National Tournament and compiled a record of 13-12 with a pair of national semifinal appearances. The finished fourth in 1947 and again in 1964.
IN THE RANKINGS
There is one MIAA team in the Top 25 in the latest National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) National Poll. Emporia State received votes in seven NABC National Polls last season and were in the Top 25 the first five weeks of the season. During the 2022-23 season Emporia State had a string of five straight weeks being ranked, their longest streak since a ten week span during the 2006-07 season. The Hornets spent 22 weeks in the NABC Top 25 from 2003-08, getting as high as seventh in the nation on three different occasions.
GIVE ME 20
The 2023 season was the fourth time Emporia State won 20 games as a member of the NCAA and the 12th time in school history. The Hornets had not won 20 games in back to back years since reaching the 20 win mark in three straight seasons from 1987-90. ESU won at least 20 games in five out of six seasons from 1985-90. Emporia State has won at least ten games in conference play 12 times over the last 34 seasons.
LISTEN & WATCH LIVE
Audio of all Emporia State games are available on the Hornet Sports Network across Northeast Kansas and into Missouri. Flagship station KFFX 104.9FM is joined by SportsRadio 1490AM in Topeka and 103.7FM in Kansas City as the Voice of the Hornets Blake Cripps calls the action. Audio is also available on kvoe.com and the Audacy app. KFFX is in their 37th straight year as the radio home of Hornet Athletics, the longest active streak between a commercial station and an MIAA school.
Video webcasts for all of Emporia State's regular season games are available on a pay per view basis from the MIAA Digital Network. The MIAA Network content is available live and is immediately archived for on-demand viewing after each event. Fans can find the action on www.themiaanetwork.com and on The MIAA Network apps for Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, and Roku.
The MIAA has entered into an agreement with Scripps Media and their independent television station KMCI, serving the Kansas City metropolitan area on 38 The Spot, to continue its MIAA TV Game of the Week broadcasts throughout the 2025 NCAA Division II basketball season. Beginning with Turnpike Tussle January 4 in White Auditorium, 38 The Spot will broadcast NCAA Division II men's and women's basketball games from nine different MIAA campuses in January and February. The broadcast schedule will wrap up with the live broadcast of the MIAA men's and women's championship games from the 2025 basketball tournament at Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City on March 9.
