Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Founders Hall
[ LIVE WEBCAST ]
The final week of the 2001 Heartland Conference regular season tips off tonight as the Anderson University Ravens visit Founders Hall to take on the Bluffton College men’s basketball team. The HCAC tournament bracket is still a long way from being decided, but tonight’s results from around the league will help clear the picture.
Tonight the Beavers have a chance to tie the single-season record for wins in Founders Hall. Bluffton is 9-2 at home this season, which is just one win shy of the school record 10 wins in Founders Hall set by the 1965-66 squad. In addition, BC’s 15 wins this season is already the fourth highest win total in BC hoops history (see page 30 in today’s program), and just one win away from matching Head Coach Guy Neal’s highest win total in his 12 years at Bluffton (Neal went 16-10 in 1991-92).
Achieving those milestones against Anderson tonight will be no small feat, however. The Ravens are without question the hottest team in the Heartland Conference right now, having won five straight games including victories at Hanover and Defiance. Prior to their 66-64 nail-biter at Defiance on Saturday, AU had won their previous four games by an average of 19.8 points per game.
In fact, Anderson’s last loss came at the hands of Bluffton, who notched a 67-65 win at Anderson on Jan. 24, which at the time dropped the Ravens to 0-6 in the league. Those six defeats, however, came by an average margin of just five points and included two overtime losses. AU also lost by just four points earlier this year to Division I Ball State University and lost by eight points to DI Weber State University, which was a member of the NCAA 64-team championship tournament two years ago.
In deciding the seeding for the HCAC tournament, head-to-head competition is the #1 tiebreaker, so for Bluffton to host a game next Tuesday the Beavers need a win tonight and Saturday against Franklin and have both Mount St. Joseph and Defiance go 1-1 over their final two HCAC games (tonight MSJ is at Hanover, Defiance hosts Franklin, and on Saturday they play each other). The #1 seed in the tournament will have a first round bye and will host the HCAC semi-finals and championship Feb. 23 and 24.
In their game in Anderson earlier this season Bluffton jumped out to a 39-31 lead at halftime and kept Anderson at bay in the second half as the Beavers did not trail at any point in the final 20 minutes. AU came back in the final two minutes of the game, however, but a basket by Ben Coole and a free throw by Chris Sheldon with seven ticks on the clock sealed BC’s two-point win. Rod Overmyer nailed four 3-pointers, all in the first half, and finished with a game-high 22 points to lead the Beavers. Coole added 17 points and seven rebounds, while Sheldon chipped in 10 points and had a game-high five assists. Josh Miller led Anderson with 17 points.
AU’s Jim Scarbeary and BC’s Rod Overmyer rank 1st and 3rd in the HCAC in 3-pointers made with 63 and 47, respectively. Anderson is the HCAC’s second best shooting club, connecting on 48.5% of their field goal attempts, including 38.6% from behind the 3-point arc. Bluffton, meanwhile, ranks second in assist-to-turnover ratio (AU is 3rd).
