Date: Thurs., Feb. 23, 2012
Tip Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Arena: Wolstein Center
Live Video:
Horizon League Network
All-time Series: Detroit leads, 35-16
This Year: Dec. 3, 2011 - L, 61-66 @ Detroit
Last Year: Jan. 20, 2011 - L, 69-81 @ CSU; Feb. 7, 2011 - W, 81-78 @ Detroit
ON TAP
Detroit goes on its final road trip of the regular season, making the swing through northeast Ohio for tilts at Cleveland State and Youngstown State on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. Detroit is eying the coveted No. 2 seed in the upcoming Horizon League tournament and the double-bye to the semifinals that goes along with it. With two wins this week, Detroit would clinch the second seed.
SCOUTING THE VIKINGS
CSU has dropped its last five contests, including a 71-67 decision at Green Bay Tuesday. The Vikings have been without D'Aundray Brown (10.8 ppg) for the last four games. Trevon Harmon is the team's leading scorer at 12.8 ppg while Anton Grady adds 6.2 rebounds per contest.
THE SERIES WITH CSU
The Titans dominate the all-time series with CSU, taking 35 of the 51 all-time meetings. CSU was a 66-61 winner in the team's first meeting this season, way back on Dec. 3. CSU nearly let a 14-point lead slip but hung on after the Titans trimmed it to three in the final 2:30. Detroit and CSU split their series last season.
WHAT'S NEXT?
The regular season comes to a close Saturday when Detroit travels to Youngstown State. This game figures to have huge implications in the Horizon League standings as Detroit is still in the running for a two-seed and could finish anywhere from two to six. If the Titans are slotted anywhere from three to six, Detroit would host a home game on Tues., Feb. 28 in the first round of the HL tournament. The two seed would skip all the way to the semifinal round on Sat., Mar. 3 at top-seeded Valparaiso.
LAST TIME OUT
Behind a solid team effort and blistering shooting in the first half, host Detroit defeated James Madison, 82-70 Saturday afternoon at Calihan Hall in a SEARS BracketBusters affair. The Titans made 15 of their first 19 shots to help open an 18-point first-half lead but had to fend off the Dukes to etch the win. The final tally had eight Titans with at least six points.
Jason Calliste's 19 led the way, followed by a dozen from
Donavan Foster and 10 apiece by
LaMarcus Lowe,
Doug Anderson and
Evan Bruinsma.
Chase Simon added eight points and five assists while
Ray McCallum handed-out seven assists with seven points and five rebounds.
DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS
Five games ago, CSU was 20-4 with a 10-2 mark in league play and sat atop the league standings. Detroit, on the other hand, had just pulled back to .500 at 12-12 and sat 6-6 in the league ledger and in a tie for sixth place. Fast forward two weeks later and the teams are now tied for third place, and are completely opposite streaks-- CSU losing five straight and Detroit stringing five wins together.
BUS TRIP ADDED FOR YOUNGSTOWN STATE
Fans can catch both remaining road games by hopping on the Titan fan bus. A trip to Cleveland State was already in the works for Thursday, but now-- by popular demand-- fans can travel to Youngstown State Saturday to see their beloved Titans in the regular season finale against the Penguins as the teams battle for position in the Horizon League standings. For more information, go to
www.detroittitans.com.
17 AGAIN
Coach McCallum has led the Titans to their third straight season of at least 17 wins and it marks the seventh time in his coaching career he's achieved that mark. In four of the previous times, it led to a postseason berth (2 NCAA, 2 NIT). The high-water mark was a 22-win campaign in his final season at Ball State (1999-2000), a season that saw the Cardinals win 11 of their final 12 (including the MAC Championship) before heading into the NCAA Tournament.
MICROWAVE
Jason Calliste has not started just two games all season. But, in those games he's managed to heat up quickly. Saturday's win over James Madison saw the junior come off-the-bench for 13 first-half points en route to a season-high-tying 19 points. The only other time he scored 19 was when he was the sixth man in the blowout win vs. Concordia back on Nov. 18.
DIRTY DOZEN
Detroit has made its push up the Horizon League standings in these last 12 games. After starting 1-4 in conference, UDM has vaulted from eighth place to a tie for third at 10-6. The HL records since Detroit's 1-4 start:
HL Records after Jan. 6
DETROIT 9-2
Valpo 10-3
Butler 8-5
CSU 7-5
Green Bay 6-6
Milwaukee 6-6
Youngstown St 6-6
Wright St 4-7
UIC 2-9
Loyola 1-10
THREE TO 1,000?
Keeping tabs on individual scoring as we head to the final stretch of the season and there is a possibility that Detroit could have three 1,000-point scorers on the floor at one time.
Chase Simon, already at 1,299 points in a Titan uniform, surpassed the mark in the early part of the season. Fellow senior
Eli Holman sits at 956 points with two regular season games remaining. Sophomore
Ray McCallum also has a shot at quadruple digits this season as he has 886 career points, and depending on the number of postseason games played, could reach that plateau.
TIE-BREAKER SCENARIOS
As it stands heading into the final weekend, Detroit is in a tie for third place with Cleveland State, a half-game back of Butler for second place. That coveted two seed and a HL tournament bye all the way to the semifinals will be on the line this week with five teams all still alive to potentially grab it (Butler, CSU, Detroit, Youngstown State, Milwaukee).
1.) Head-to-head
2.) If two teams tied- best record against top seed(s)
3.) If three or more teams are tied, combined record of each of the tied teams against the other teams involved in the tie
4.) Compare each of the tied team's records against the team occupying the highest position in the standings and continue down through the standings until the tie is reduced to a two-team tie (at which time revert to items (1) and (2) above or until the tie is broken.
5.) Highest RPI for that season (source for RPI: College Basketball News).
SHOTS FROM THE HEART-- ELITE EIGHT!
Coach McCallum is perfect through three rounds of the CollegeInsider.com "Shots from the Heart" head coach's bracket to benefit the Skip Prosser Foundation. Coach made all 25 shots in each of the first three rounds and has advanced to the "Elite 8", where he will match-up against defending champion Fred Hoiberg of Iowa State. The tournament will be pared down to four in the coming weeks with the finals at the end of February. The Free Throw Champions of both the head and assistant coach's brackets will be recognized as part of the 2012 CollegeInsider.com Awards Banquet in New Orleans, site of the 2012 Men's NCAA Basketball Championship. Follow detroittitans.com for updates on Coach Ray's progress in the tourney. For more on the "Shots from the Heart", got to http://collegeinsider.com/shots.
DETROIT TITAN COURT REPORT ON FSD
The newest edition of the "Detroit Titan Court Report" is out and you can catch it during a number of different re-airs on FOX Sports Detroit. The fourth installment of the 30-minute show gives fans an inside look to the Detroit Titans men's basketball team, including interviews with players and coaches, highlights, features and behind-the-scenes access like no other show can provide. The show, in its second season on FSD, was nominated for a Michigan Emmy in its first season and has been met with rave reviews in season two.
EPISODE 4 SCHEDULED RE-AIRS
Sat 02/25 11:30:00 AM
Tue 02/28 2:30:00 PM
Sat 03/03 11:00:00 AM
Sat 03/03 11:30:00 PM
Mon 03/05 6:00:00 PM
Tue 03/06 6:00:00 PM
Wed 03/07 2:30:00 PM
Fri 03/09 6:00:00 PM
Mon 03/12 7:30:00 PM
EPISODE 5 PREMIERE and SCHEDULED RE-AIRS
Tue 03/13 7:00:00 PM
Wed 03/14 8:00:00 PM
Wed 03/14 8:30:00 PM
Sat 03/17 2:00:00 PM
Tue 03/20 2:30:00 PM
Sat 03/24 2:30:00 PM
Mon 03/26 6:00:00 PM
Thu 03/29 6:30:00 PM
Sat 03/31 6:30:00 PM
Sat 03/31 11:00:00 PM
EPISODE 6 PREMIERE
April - TBD (Season recap)
