NORMAL, Ill. - The Illinois State Redbirds will look to take the momentum gained from Saturday afternoon's win into Tuesday night, when ISU hosts the Indiana State Sycamores in a 7 p.m. tip-off inside CEFCU Arena.
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 331 position rankings and .106 percentage points and currently rank eighth in the country in three-point field goal percentage
• ISU forward Chase Walker gets fouled at a rate of 8.0 per 40 minutes, which is the fifth-highest rate in the NCAA
• This season the Redbirds have had nine games with single-digit turnovers, which is the second-highest total by an ISU squad since 1988-89
• Illinois State is one of only three schools in NCAA Division I basketball to rank inside of the top-35 in field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage, and free throw percentage
• If maintained, ISU's .398 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 two 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 26th-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 19 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 six schools in the country to rank inside of the top-20 in the NCAA in both three-point field goals per game (10.3 - 20th) and three-point field goal percentage (.398 - eighth)
• This season Illinois State has a KenPom adjusted offensive percentage of 112.5, which is the 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 12th in the country in the KenPom stat Offensive Rebounding Percentage, and ninth 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
SCOUTING INDIANA STATE
Indiana State comes into the Tuesday evening game looking to snap out of its four-game losing skid, falling at Valparaiso in overtime, against Belmont, at Bradley, and against Drake, over the last four contests.
In the loss to the Bulldogs, by a 71-53 score, the Sycamores were led by Samage Teel and Markus Harding who scored 13 and 12 points, respectively. Two other - Aaron Gray (9) and Josiah LeGree (8) all flirted with the double-figure plateau. Harding pulled down six rebounds to lead the team, while LeGree had four assists and Teel three.
Teel's 17.1 points per game is second-most in the MVC, while Jaden Daughtry averages 13.0 points per game, making 62 percent of his attempts from the field. Four Sycamores - K'mani Doughty (8.4), Gray (8.4), Camp Wagner (7.8), and Harding (7.7) - all average over seven points per game. Gray pulls down an average of 5.3 rebounds per game to lead the team, as Indiana State out-rebounds its opponents by an average of 1.7 rebounds per contest.
Teel's 87 assists are third-most in the conference, while LeGree's 53 helpers are second on the team. Teel also leads the team with 27 steals, as Daughtry and Bruno Alocen have 19 and 18 steals, each.Â
SHOOTING STARS
Illinois State is one of only three schools in the country to rank inside of the top-35 in field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage. The sum of ISU's three rankings is 67 (27th in FG%, 8th in 3FG%, 32nd in FT%), and is the fourth-lowest ranking sum in the country.
FOULED A LOT
Illinois State sophomore forward Chase Walker draws an average of 8.0 fouls per 40 minutes played, the fifth-largest total in the country this season.
FRESHMAN DEEP MAKES
Through the first 19 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 eighth in the NCAA in three-point field percentage (.398) and 20th in three-pointers per game (10.3). There are just six schools in the country who rank inside of the top-20 in each category.
LOW TURNOVERS
This season, through 19 games, Illinois State has nine games with single-digit turnovers. Since 1988-89, this season's total is tied for the second-lowest in a season, along with the 2008-09 squad, and trailing only the 12 that last season's team put together.
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 19 games of the season, Illinois State forward Chase Walker ranks 11th 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.
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 5.1 and 4.6 points per game each. Among players who have seen action in at least half of their teams' games, Boser has the fourth-best eighth-player scoring average, while Davis has the third-best ninth-leading scoring total.
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 110.9, which is the highest total for ISU in the history of the KenPom ratings, which date back through the 1996-97 season. Stathead basketball has an offensive metric titled Offensive Rating, and ISU's 116.1 this season is nearly 10 points higher than the previous season-high (dating back to 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 16 games overall, with the No. 14 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 16th highest. ISU's win over UAB is the only game in the top-19 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.
