The following “Starting Five” points offer a quick look inside GLVC men’s basketball action this week:
STARTING FIVE
[1 | glvc basketball back on the court tuesday]
GLVC men's basketball
gets back to action on Tuesday with five league squads competing in non-conference play. Maryville, Truman State and UW-Parkside will all host 7 p.m. CT tips, while Illinois Springfield and Saint Joseph's hit the road to Governors State and Dayton, respectively. Additionally, four league games will be contested throughout the rest of the week, beginning with William Jewell heading to Rockhurst on Wednesday for a 7:30 p.m. tip. Three other travel partner game are on the docket Saturday with Drury hosting Missouri S&T at 3 p.m., Maryville welcoming Missouri-St. Louis at 3 p.m., and Truman State making the trip to Quincy for a 3:15 p.m. tip.
[2 | seven teams jump out to 2-0 starts in league play]
Seven of the eight GLVC programs that won league openers this past Thursday made it a perfect 2-0 start on Saturday, with exception of Missouri-St. Louis ending Missouri S&T's 6-0 start. Bellarmine, Lewis, Southern Indiana and UW-Parkside sit in the top half of the East Division at 2-0, while Drury, Quincy and Truman State are 2-0 in the West. Four GLVC standouts posted double-doubles on Saturday, including Missouri S&T's Rokas Paulauskas (12 pts, 11 reb), Quincy's Joseph Tagarelli (18 pts, 10 reb), Truman State's Connor Erickson (18 pts, 10 reb), and UW-Parkside's Kendale McCullum (15 pts, 11 ast).
Highlighting Thursday’s league openers were Bellarmine's Adam Eberhard and Maryville's Anthony Johnson with double-doubles of their own. Eberhard recorded 16 points and 10 rebounds against Illinois Springfield, while Johnson netted 13 points and grabbed 10 boards versus Missouri S&T. Lewis’ Miles Simelton shot 68.4 percent from the floor and averaged 20 points, five rebounds and three assists in a pair of league wins to earn
GLVC Player of the Week honors.
[3 | bellarmine, drury now among top 12 in nabc national rankings]
Bellarmine and Drury continue to represent the GLVC in this week’s National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball Poll,
it was announced Tuesday. Bellarmine (6-1, 2-0 GLVC) held steady at No. 7 while Drury (7-0, 2-0) continued its climb up the rankings as the Panthers are 12th after being ranked 15th last week. Drury has now surged 10 spots from its preseason ranking at No. 22. Southern Indiana (6-0, 2-0) doubled its votes outside the top 25 from seven to 14 this week.
[4 | hot shooting continues into conference play]
The GLVC continues to be the hottest shooting league in NCAA Division II, holding down the nation’s top field-goal percentage once again this week. The GLVC has a whole leads the other 23 Division II conferences with a nation-leading 48.13 field goal percentage (3,385-7,033), ranking ahead of the Sunshine State (47.52) and Northern Sun (47.36). GLVC teams have also combined for a 38.69 three-point field goal percentage (1,078-2,761), which ranks second nationally, and a 71.79 free-throw percentage (1,781-2,481) that rates third overall. From a team perspective, Quincy (53.4), Drury (52.3) and Bellarmine (52.3) are fourth, eighth and ninth, respectively, in Division II, while No. 27 UW-Parkside (50.4), No. 31 Truman (50.2), No. 40 William Jewell (49.6), No. 43 Missouri S&T (49.4), No. 49 Southern Indiana (49.0) and No. 50 Illinois Springfield (49.0) all rank in the nation’s top 50. Additionally, No. 2 Southern Indiana (82.5) and No. 4 Bellarmine (80.8) pace the way in free-throw percentage, while No. 3 Drury (48.1), No. 4 Truman (46.5) and No. 10 USI (45.0) rank in the top 10 nationally in three-point field goal percentage. In the opening week of league play last week, UW-Parkside shot 66.1 percent (37-56) against Saint Joseph’s, Drury made 60.3 percent (38-63) of its shots against Maryville, and Bellarmine averaged 60.3 percent (38-63) from the field against McKendree. Individually, Drury’s Tevin Foster (96.9) is second nationally in free-throw percentage, Truman’s Jake Velky (59.5) is third from beyond the arc, and Southern Indiana’s Julius Rajala (71.4) is seventh in field goal percentage.
[5 | three conference teams keeping their distance on the scoreboard]
Three GLVC teams currently rank in the nation’s top 25 in both scoring offense and scoring margin. Missouri S&T leads all conference programs with 92.1 points per game, good for 12th nationally, while Southern Indiana (91.2) and Saint Joseph’s (90.6) follow in 17th and 19th, respectively. This past week, two teams eclipsed the century mark as Southern Indiana posted 104 points against McKendree on Thursday and Drury netted 103 points against Maryville on Saturday. In terms of margin of victory, Bellarmine ranks 10th nationally with a 17.9 scoring margin, followed by No. 17 Southern Indiana (16.7) and No. 25 Missouri S&T (14.9). Speaking of keeping the distance when it comes to scoring, USI sophomore Alex Stein has doubled his scoring gap as the league’s top point producer. After owning a 1.5 points-per-game advantage over teammate Jeril Taylor last week, Stein is now averaging 22.2 points each time out, more than three points ahead of second-place Patrick Whelan (19.1) of William Jewell.