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UCA (8-21/2-13), 6th in East
McNeese (10-19/5-10), 5th in East

Last meeting:
UCA lost at Farris Center by 68-53

McNeese's last 3 games:
3/3: Loss at SELA by 60-59
2/27: Win at home over Nicholls by 69-53
2/24: Loss at Sam Houston State by 74-56

The Bears have been all over the board this year..... close road losses to top teams and a flop or two at home where they normally play quite well. The Cowboys are playing pretty well recently also with a heartbreaking loss at SELA and a solid win at home over Nicholls...then they were handled pretty well on the road at Sam this week. Stats are very close with the only real difference being MSU shoots 3s at 35% clip to UCA's 30%. Shut down Diego Kapelin from 3 land and that may quell that threat.

If Bears take their A game to Lake Charles and treat this like the championship game, they can avenge the earlier disappointment at home. Road wins usually come from solid defense, good rebounding and low TOs. Bears need to keep this game in the high 50s but a win is possible.

Go Bears!!


Top Players in SLC Stats:
UCA....
Tadre Sheppard...7 rebs/56% FGs


MSU....
P. J. Alawoya...8 rebs/52% FGs
Patrick Richard...79% FTs
Diego Kapelin....41% 3s

Stats:
UCA/MSU
Scoring:63/68
Scoring defense:67/70
FGs:41/43
FG defense: 45/44
3s: 30/35
3s defense: 35/35
FTs:63/64
Rebs:34/35
Reb defense: 35/34
TOs: 14/14
TO defense: 14/15

14:37 in 1st

UCA 13
MSU 7

oops...

HALF

UCA 34
MSU 24

11:49 keft

UCA 44
MSU 36

Mitch nearing 1000 career points....

Mitch Rueter hits FG at about 3:50 mark to move to 1001 career points with Bears leading 62-56....Mitch has 21 so far today

FINAL

UCA 76 (9-21/3-13)
MSU 72 (10-20/5-11)

http://www.ucasports.com/sport.asp?action=news&sportid=6&article=3593

Mitch Rueter was determined to go out with a wn and did that plus become one of 21 Bears to reach reach the 1000 point mark. Mitch led all scorers with 25 and ends his career with 1005. Jared Rehmel again played well and scored 20 as Tadre Sheppard scored 15 with 9 rebs. Stephon Martin led McNeese with 18.

Bears shot the ball well today, hit a tremendous 83% for FTs and were +9 in rebounds. They led most of the game by 4-8 then MSU went up one late after relentless pressing but UCA kept working on offense, got ball in to Tadre and Mitch and hit FTs. Hit 50% from fiedl, 8-=% from FT line and out rebound opponents and wins are aallot lesaier to come by.

The only downer (besides this being Mitch's last game) was 20 TOs that let MSU stay in the game late.

All in all Bears played well on road and come home with a win.

Coach: great day and nice to end with a victory...ended season on an upward trend and played well overall down the stretch....guys played well today with pride...it fesl awesome to have comapleted D1 transition and be able to play for championships next season.....our guys got a lot of experience this year.....Mitch got off to a fast start today then ended strong in spite of tight coverage...Rehmel played well again as he has the last 8-9 games...Tadre and Carlos had good effort today as well....

Stats Summary:

UCA/MSU
FGs: 21-42 = 50%; 28-65=43%
3s: 10-20 =50%; 5-16=31%
FTs: 24-29=83%; 11-13=85%
Rebs: 34; 25
TOs: 20; 10

For the second year in a row, the guys beat McNeese St on the final game of the season. Great job, guys!

Congratulations to Mitch for reaching 1000 points in his UCA career. He earned it and deserve it.

Hopefully this win will carry good momentum into next season.

There was a rumor going around that Coach Chappell could be fired after today's game. Again just a rumor, but it wouldn't be too surprising.

I just found out from Mike Pouncy that Coach Chappell and the whole staff were indeed fired today.

How do they fire a player? Take away his scholarship? As for the coaches, I'm sorry they got fired, but it was way past time for something new.

I think he meant that Pouncy told him ....

Suprised the coaches were fired right after a win....I believe they already knew as coaches they were done! just kept it in house that was good on there part because that would have been a distraction....well I do wish all the assistants luck people dont realize how young the staff was, hope all goes well with them...

I guess that would explain a lot...if only I could read.

I think it is sad that a couch that never had a losing record before the transition into Division 1 was let go during the transition period. It says a lot about the current administration. It is hard to compete when you are playing Kansas and teams that are CLEARLY money games. Also I imagine it is hard to recruit when players don't have anything to play for.....I do recall the Hervey days...We are much better off with Rand, but it is a bad statement on UCA that we have no faith in our coaching staff!