Nov. 2, 2005

COLUMBIA, Mo.– The Bemidji State University men’s basketball team opened its 2005-06 exhibition season traveling to Columbia, Mo. to face NCAA Division I opponent University of Missouri. The Tigers defeated the Beavers 105-56 in front of 6,153 at Mizzou Arena.

On an atypical shooting night, the Beavers managed just 29 percent from the field and 21 percent from beyond the three-point arc.

Alvin Muse (Sr., South Holland, Ill.) paced the Beavers going three-for-five from three-point land for 11 eleven points. Senior guard Duane Fields (Los Angeles, Calif.) collected 10 points while Spencer Carter (Sr., Chicago, Ill.) picked up right where he left off as the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference's top rebounder last winter grabbing a game-high nine boards.

Missouri was led by junior Thomas Gardner who netted a game-high 22 points. Marshall Brown added 14 points and a team-best eight boards as the Tigers finished the night shooting 63 percent (33-55) from the field including 65 percent (7-12) from outside the three-point arc. Missouri also held a substantial lead on the free-throw line hitting 28-of-38 attempts for better than 73 percent while BSU was just 14-of-28 (50 percent) in the game.

BSU started quickly and gained control of the offensive glass from the opening tip. The team collected a pair of offensive rebounds before Manuel Guzman (Sr., Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) lit the Beavers' side of the scoreboard nabbing a rebound and putting it back for his first field goal as a Beaver.

After giving up a pair of free-throws and quick three, Muse and Pearson-Taylor combined for nine points from behind the arc during the next 1:28 to put BSU in the lead 11-5 just 3:18 into the game.

During the next 2:32, Missouri would go on an 11-0 run exclamated by Gardener dunk to put the Tigers back in front 16-11. BSU's Guzman would end the run with his second lay-up pf the night to come within three points (16-13), but that was as close as the Beavers would get for the remainder of the night as free-throw shooting for both teams and turnovers played a key role in the Beavers' demise.

BSU got to the line just 13 times in the first half and converted only five of those (38 percent) opportunities into points while the Beavers sent Mizzou to the stripe 25 times in the first half alnone which translated into 17 points (68 percent).

Bemidji State also tuned the ball over twice as many times as the Tigers (15-7) in the first stanza. Mizzou took advantage of those opportunities gaining 24 points off of turnovers and took a 57-33 lead into the locker room at the half.

Missouri came out of the break to increase its lead to 32 (67-35) four minutes into the second half, scoring 10 of the first 12 points of the half.

BSU cut the lead to 30 points (67-37) on a Sherwin Johnson (Sr., Macon, Ga.) jumper, but the team shot just 21 percent (7-32) in the second and the Tigers pulled away with the 105-96 victory.

After the game BSU head coach Patrick Smith stated, "Of course you always come into a game like this hoping to get a win so we are disappointed, but more importantly this was a good learning experience for us."

"I think we broke down defensively at times and failed to adjust to how tightly the game was called and that is disappointing." He added, "But there some good things that came out of this. We got to get a lot of guys on the court and see them play and I thought we pounded the offensive glass well."

With the loss, BSU drops to 0-9 all-time versus Division I opponents and 0-2 under Smith who is in his second season at Bemidji State.

The Tigers move to 13-0 under head coach Quin Snyder and have now gone over 100 points in five of those contests.

The Beavers return to exhibition action Nov. 11 when they travel to Ames, Iowa to face Iowa State University in an 8 p.m. tip-off. The following night the team wraps up its 2005-06 exhibition season with a 4 p.m. tilt at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.