Redbirds to Host Bison in On-Campus Cancun Challenge Battle

NORMAL, Ill. - The Illinois State men's basketball team will look to snap its current two-game losing skid when the Redbirds host the Bucknell Bison in a 6 p.m. Saturday tip-off in the on-campus portion of the Cancun Challenge.

QUICK HITTERS

• Through three games of the season, Illinois State junior guard Antonio Reeves is averaging 26.7 points per game - a total that currently leads the NCAA, with Ochai Agbaji of Kansas and Justin Bean of Utah State just behind with averages of 26.3 points per game.
• Reeves'80 points through the first three games is the third-highest total for ISU since 1962-63, trailing only Doug Collins' 88 and George Terry's 85. Fourth-highest on that list is Tarise Bryson who scored 69 points over the first three games of the 1999-00 season.
• Dan Muller is one of 44 NCAA Division I head coaches that are coaching at their alma maters - up from 35 from a season ago due to an eye-popping 12 new such coaches this season. 
• With his unusual stat line of 29 points, five made three-point baskets, and three blocked shots in the team's season-opener against UNCW, Antonio Reeves became just the 38th player in NCAA Division I since 2010-11 to put up such numbers in a single-game.
• Illinois State forward Sy Chatman is one total rebound shy of being just one of three MVC players this season to average a double-double, as he currently has a 17.3 point, 9.7 rebound average. 
• With his back-to-back 20+ scoring games to start the season, Reeves became one of just 11 student-athletes in the program history to open a season with two consecutive such scoring games. The school record of 20+ point scoring games to open a season is 10 held by Doug Collins to start the 1971-72 season.
• Trailing by 15 with just over five minutes to play in the first half, the Redbirds came back to win the game, providing the 11th-largest single-game comeback in program history.
• Illinois State has four student-athletes from outside of the United States, tied for the most foreign student-athletes on the team, as last season also had four players from outside the USA.
•With the team having seven players standing 6-8 or taller, this Illinois State squad has the fifth-biggest average height of any team in program history.
• During his nine-plus years as head coach, Dan Muller has the third-most wins and third-best win percentage of any NCAA Division I school in Illinois.
• Bucknell junior guard Xander Rice is the son of former Illinois State assistant coach, and current Monmouth head coach King Rice. King Rice was an assistant at ISU from 1993 until 1998, an era that encompassed all of head coach Dan Muller's playing career.

SCOUTING THE BISON

Bucknell enters the Saturday evening game having snapped a two-game season-opening losing skid with an 81-74 win over Rider on Wednesday evening.

In the win, Xander Rice scored 23 points, making 7-of-13 shots from the field and 4-of-5 from long range, while dishing out four assists. Andre Screen scored 20 points while pulling down eight rebounds, making 8-of-9 shots, as the Bison made 27-of-55 shots (49.1 percent) from the field. Malachi Rhodes added 11 points, while pulling down seven rebounds. 

On the season Andrew Funk averages a team-best 17.3 points per game, making 39 percent from long range (11-of-28) through three games. Rice and Screen average 14.3 and 11.3 points per game, each. Screen's 8.3 rebounds per game top the squad, which gets out-rebounded by an average of 3.7 rebounds per contest. Rice has given out 14 assists to lead the team, while Josh Adoh has a team-best three steals.

BIG NUMBERS

With his strong start to the 2021-22 season, Antonio Reeves has climbed into the NCAA scoring lead, averaging 26.7 points per game through the first three games of the season. The last Redbird player to average 20 points or more per game for an entire season was Tarise Bryson, when he averaged 22.8 for the 2000-01 season.

THREE-GAME SCORING START

For Illinois State over the last 58 seasons (since 1963-64) - just three players have scored 80 or more points over the first three games of the season, including Illinois State Percy Family Hall of Fame members Doug Collins (88) and George Terry (85), and new to the list this season is Antonio Reeves (80).

FOUR-GAME SCORING START

While we are at it, we figured to dig in ahead of the Bucknell game, and give a target for Reeves to attack, as below are the ten highest scoring totals over the first four games of a season in program history. 

FAMILY REDBIRD AND BUCKNELL TIES

Bucknell guard Xander Rice, a 6-3 junior, is the son of former Redbird assistant coach King Rice. King was an assistant coach at ISU under Kevin Stallings from 1993-1998, an era that encompases all of Dan Muller's playing tenure at ISU.

BIG BOARDING

With 10 rebounds in the season opener against UNCW, followed by another 13 in the second game of the season against Eastern Michigan, Illinois State forward Sy Chatman has started himself on a trajectory alongside some of the top rebounders in program history.