DES MOINES, Iowa - The Illinois State men's basketball team will travel to the Knapp Center on the campus of Drake University for an 8 p.m. battle with the Drake Bulldogs on Wednesday night.
QUICK HITTERS
• Over the past 10 seasons in the NCAA, few schools have made a jump from one season to the next better than ISU. From last season to this season the Redbirds have jumped 333 position rankings and .112 percentage points and currently rank sixth in the country in three-point field goal percentage
• ISU forward Chase Walker gets fouled at a rate of 8.4 per 40 minutes, which not only leads the country, but has the 10th-highest foul rate in the NCAA over the last decade
• Illinois State is one of two schools in NCAA Division I basketball to rank inside of the top-30 in field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage, and free throw percentage
• If maintained, ISU's .404 three-point field goal percentage is on pace to be the fourth-best single-season average in school history
• Illinois State fifth-year forward Caden Boser stands just four points away from reaching 1,000 for his collegiate career, spanning his time at UMKC, Valdosta, and now ISU
• Jack Daugherty's 37 three-point baskets are tied for the ninth-most in a season by an ISU freshman in program history
• Malachi Poindexter has made 86.8 percent of his free throw tries over his three-year Redbird career, which is the 28th-highest active career percentage in the NCAA
• This season the Illinois State Redbirds have had seven different players lead the team in scoring through the opening 17 games of the season
• Illinois State's win against UAB on November 23 was the program's third game in a four-game stretch where the Redbird opponent was picked as the preseason favorite in their conference: Ohio (Mid-American Conference), McNeese (Southland Conference), and UAB (American Athletic Conference). In those games, the Redbirds went 2-1
• The Redbirds are one of five schools in the country to rank inside of the top-20 in the NCAA in both three-point field goals per game (10.6 - 17th) and three-point field goal percentage (.404 - sixth)
• This season Illinois State has a KenPom adjusted offensive percentage of 109.5, which is the second-highest by a Redbird squad in the KenPom era (1996 to present)
• Dalton Banks' three blocked shots against Saint Louis is tied for the fourth-most in the country this season in a game by a player 6-2 or shorter
• ISU's Chase Walker ranks fifth in the country in the KenPom stat Offensive Rebounding Percentage, and fourth in the same metric from Basketball Reference
• Seven times this season, ISU has had games with shooting splits of at least .500/.400/.750. No other team in school history has had more than four such game splits in a single season, and the Redbirds are tied for the most in the NCAA
• ISU forward Caden Boser and guard Jordan Davis are the among the top players in the conference of each program's eighth- and ninth-leading scorers
SCOUTING DRAKE
Drake comes into the late mid-week game on a two-game win streak with a 64-57 road win at Bradley and a 63-40 home win over the Evansville Aces.
Against the Aces the Bulldogs had three players score in double-figures, led by Bennett Stirtz who put up 16 points, while Daniel Abreu scored 12 and Tavion Banks 11. Banks pulled down a game-high 13 rebounds for his double-double, while Stirtz and Cam Manyawu each had seven boards. Stirtz dished out six of the team's eight assists in the game, while Manyawu and Stirtz had four and three steals, each.
For the year, Drake has three players averaging double-figure scoring, including Stirtz who averages 17.3 points per game - second-highest scoring average in the MVC. Abreu averages 11.3 and Mitch Mascari 11.0 for the 14-2 Bulldogs. Two others - Banks and Manyawu - average 9.4 and 8.9 points per game each.Â
Manyawu has pulled down 100 rebounds to lead the squad, while he also leads the team with 15 blocked shots. Stirtz' 99 assists and 40 steals are the high-mark for Drake this season.
SHOOTING STARS
Illinois State is one of two schools in the country (along with Texas Tech) to rank inside of the top-30 in field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage. The sum of ISU's three rankings is 60 (28th in FG%, 6th in 3FG%, 26th in FT%), and is the third-lowest sum in the country.
FOULED A LOT
Illinois State sophomore forward Chase Walker draws an average of 8.4 fouls per 40 minutes played, the largest total in the country this season, and the 10th-most over the last decade in NCAA Division I.
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FRESHMAN DEEP MAKES
Through the first 17 games of the season, Illinois State freshman Jack Daugherty has made 37 three-point field goals, which is tied for the ninth-most in a season by a freshman in program history.Â
REBOUNDING MARGIN
Against Northern Illinois on December 18, the Redbirds had a +20 rebounding margin, which is the highest by a Redbird team against a NCAA Division I opponent since November 29, 2014 against Youngstown State. There have been just five games with a larger margin for ISU since the 2009-10 season.
HIGH ON MAKES AND PERCENTAGE
This season the Redbirds rank sixth in the NCAA in three-point field percentage (.404) and 17th in three-pointers per game (10.6). There are just five schools in the country who rank inside of the top-20 in each category.
NEAR-CONFERENCE RECORDS
In ISU's win over Trinity Christian, the Redbirds made 20-of-40 three-point field goals, which is tied for the third-most in a game in conference history. Against Belmont, Illinois State's 18 made three-pointers are the second-most in a MVC game in conference history
OFFENSIVE REBOUNDING PERCENTAGE
Through 17 games of the season, Illinois State forward Chase Walker ranks fifth in the country in the KenPom statistical category Offensive Rebounding Percentage. The statistic is the percentage of possible offensive rebounds a player gets, and the denominator is scaled based on the percentage of a team's minutes played by the player. Sports Reference has their own offensive rebounding statistic, where Walker ranks fourth in the country among players with at least 300 minutes played. Wednesday night foe Cam Manyawu ranks fifth on the same list heading into the mid-week meeting.
EIGHT IS GREAT AND NINE IS FINE
This season Illinois State has strong depth across its lineup, as the team's eighth- (Caden Boser) and ninth-leading scorers (Jordan Davis) are averaging 5.6 and 4.6 points per game each. Among players who have seen action in at least half of their teams' games, Boser has the second-best eighth-player scoring average, while Davis has more points than any other teams' ninth-leading scorers.
STRONG NEW CLASS
With four signees, the Illinois State men's basketball recruiting class for the 2025 season was ranked 60th in the country according to the 247sports.com team ranking. ISU added forward Nick Allen, guard/forward Isaac Ericksen, and guards Tyreek Coleman and Mason Klabo. Allen, a 6-11 forward from Bradley-Bourbonnais HS, has a national 247sports ranking of 277, and is the top-rated center in the state of Illinois. He was named First Team All-State as a junior. Ericksen, a 6-9 guard/forward from Green Level HS in Cary, North Carolina, was named Second Team All-State as a junior, and is the 13th-rated prospect inside North Carolina. Coleman, a 6-2 guard from Waubonsie Valley HS, was named Third Team All-State as a junior. Klabo, a 6-1 guard from Fargo Davies HS in Fargo, North Dakota, was named First Team All-State three times heading into his senior season, as he is within grasp of the North Dakota boys basketball all-time scoring record.
KENPOM EFFICIENCYÂ
KenPom, the primary statistical and analysis college basketball site, and its work on tempo-based basketball statistics is compared by many to the work of Bill James in baseball. This season Illinois State's adjusted offensive total is 110.6, which is the second-highest total for ISU in the history of the KenPom ratings, which date back through the 1996-97 season.
PERCENTAGES ACROSS THE BOARD
Seven times this season the Illinois State men's basketball team has had games where it has made over half of its field goal tries, 40 percent of the three-point attempts, and at least 75 percent from the charity stripe. No other team in school history - outside of this season's team - has had more than four such games in an entire season. The total is also tied for the highest this season with St. Thomas. Since 2004-05, the most such games in a season is 11, held by Oklahoma State (2004-05), Michigan (2016-17), South Dakota State (2021-22), and Colorado (2023-24).
EXCITING GAMES
Notable basketball analytics website KenPom has a statistic called Game Excitement, which is a measure of how much the win probability changed over the course of a game (using a win probability algorithm that assumes the teams are of equal strength). This season the Redbirds appear in the list twice within the top 11 games overall, with the No. 9 game coming from Illinois State's 84-83 win over UAB in the Virgin Islands, while the Redbird 99-97 overtime loss at Belmont is the 11th highest. ISU's win over UAB is the only game in the top-15 of the ranking to not have gone into overtime.
HALL OF FAMER DOUG COLLINS
On October 13, Redbird basketball legend Doug Collins was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the highest honor for anyone associated with the game of basketball. Collins had played and worked in basketball at almost every level including being an All-American at Illinois State, an NBA top overall draft pick, an Olympian in 1972, playing for the Philadelphia 76ers, coaching the Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Philadelphia 76ers, and Washington Wizards, and an NBA and Olympic broadcaster for ABC/ESPN, CBS, NBC, TNT, and TBS. He was joined in the 2024 Hall of Fame class by 12 others including: Chauncey Billups, Vince Carter, Seimone Augustus, Bo Ryan, Michael Cooper, Walter Davis, Charles Smith, Dick Barnett, Harley Redin, Michele Timms, Jerry West, and Herb Simon.
ALL-AMERICA WATCH LIST
On Thursday, October 31, Illinois State sophomore guard Johnny Kinziger was named to the Bracketeer.org All-American watch list. Eligible conferences for the first-year award include: America East, ASUN, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, CAA, Conference USA, Horizon League, Ivy League, MAAC, MAC, MEAC, MVC, NEC, OVC, Patriot League, SoCon, Southland, SWAC, Summit League, Sun Belt, WAC. The 2025 Bracketeer.Org Non-Power Conference Player of the Year will be announced in the final week of March, 2025.Â
PRESEASON POLL
The Illinois State men's basketball team was picked to finish fourth in the preseason poll, with voters in the poll consisting of school's media, SIDs, and head coaches. Johnny Kinziger was named to the First Team, while Malachi Poindexter was picked on the second team.
