Detroit (15-12, 9-6 HL) at Wright State (12-15, 7-8 HL)
Date: Wed., Feb. 15, 2012
Tip Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Arena: Nutter Center
All-time Series: Detroit leads, 22-20
Last Season: Dec. 4- @Detroit 78, WSU 69; Feb. 25- Detroit 77, @WSU 67
This season: Jan.21- @Detroit 69, Wright State 53
ON TAP
The Titans will play their final three Horizon League games all on the road, heading to Wright State Wednesday. Detroit has won three in a row for the second time this season and has eight wins in its last 10 tries.
SCOUTING THE RAIDERS
WSU will have leading scorer Julian Mays at its disposal for this matchup. The team's leading scorer (14.0 ppg) did not play due to injury in the early meeting between the schools (Jan. 21). The junior transfer from North Carolina State has nine 20-point games this season, including a season-high 33-point outburst on Jan. 25 vs. UIC that featured a Horizon League-record 19 free throws made.
THE SERIES WITH WSU
Detroit, with three straight wins in the series, now owns a 22-20 advantage all-time. The Titans swept both meetings last season and were 69-53 winners on Jan. 21 this year. In that game, four Titans scored in double figures led by 16 from senior
Chase Simon. The Titans shot 60 percent from the field in the opening half to build a 13-point lead and never looked back.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Next weekend sees the Titans play their final non-conference and regular season home game when they host James Madison in the Sears BracketBusters game (Feb. 18) on Senior Night. The season comes to a close the following week when Detroit visits Cleveland State (Feb. 23) and Youngstown State (Feb. 25).
LAST TIME OUT
The Titans erased another second-half deficit-- this time a 12-point Green Bay lead-- in earning a 77-74 win at Calihan Hall Sunday afternoon in Horizon League play. Two days after Detroit made a seven-point lead in the final two minutes evaporate to defeat Milwaukee, UDM turned the trick again with help from senior
Chase Simon's game-high 24 points.
Ray McCallum had six assists with no turnovers to go along with 15 points and four steals. Senior
Eli Holman had nine points and eight rebounds and fellow big man
LaMarcus Lowe had 13 points and a pair of blocks.
TAKING CARE OF THE BALL
Detroit has turned the ball over fewer times than its opponent in each of the last 14 games. In that stretch, Detroit is 10-4 and has turned its opponent over more than 16 times per game. Conversely, the Titans have only turned it over 12.1 times per game and had a 12-to-10 assist to turnover ratio in the win vs. Green Bay Sunday.
20/20
Chase Simon dumped-in 24 points Sunday vs. Green Bay to give him the 20th 20-point game of his career. It was his team-high-tying seventh of the season, but his first since Dec. 8 (16 games). He also moved past Mike Lovelace on the Detroit all-time scoring list, moving into 19th place. He is 60 points in back of Jermaine Jackson for 18th place.
COMEBACK TRAIL
Both Detroit wins last week came with the Titans trailing by double digits in the second half. In Friday's wild finish, UDM was down 10 with 3:00 left and 7 with two to go before eking out a one-point win on
Jason Calliste's free throws in the final 10 seconds. On Sunday, Green Bay enjoyed a 12-point lead until a 17-4 run wiped the deficit completely and Detroit eventually mounted a late seven-point advantage and hung on.
AT-"TEN"-TION TO DETAIL
The Titans have won eight of their last 10 games, the best 10-game stretch in head coach
Ray McCallum's tenure. Detroit has had several 6-2 stints in the past few seasons, but this 8-2 run is the best since the 2003-04 team ripped-off 10 straight wins from Feb. 4 to March 5, 2004.
TIE-BREAKER SCENARIOS
It's not too early to start talking about tie-breaking scenarios for the Horizon League tournament and seedings. As it stands BEFORE Tuesday's games, Detroit is in a three-way tie for third place with Butler and Youngstown State. The Titans are two games back of Valparaiso for the top seed and are 1.5 games back of Cleveland State for that coveted two seed and a HL tournament bye all the way to the semifinals. Two of the Titans' final three league games are against teams ahead of them in the standings. The HL tie-breaker policy is:
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!
Head Coach Ray 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.
REJECTION ROW
A pair of current Titans are in the top four all-time in career blocked shots:
Eli Holman sits third with 150 swats and
LaMarcus Lowe moved into fourth with 135 career blocks. Holman needs five to pass Brian Humes for second-most all-time while Lowe is just 15 away from his fellow teammate. The career leader is Terry Tyler, who threw aside a whopping 359 shots in his career from 1976-78.
Career Block Leaders at Detroit
1. Terry Tyler, 1976-78 359
2. Brian Humes, 1984-87 154
4.
LaMarcus Lowe, '10-pres.
135
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 PREMIERE and SCHEDULED RE-AIRS
Sun 02/12 12:30:00 PM
Wed 02/15 6:30:00 PM
Thu 02/16 2:00:00 PM
Sat 02/18 11:30:00 AM
Mon 02/20 2:00:00 PM
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)
