Men’s Hoops Hosts Western Illinois for Earlier Tipoff Tuesday

Game 7
Ball State (4-2, 0-0 MAC) vs. Western Illinois (1-4, 0-0 Summit)
Tuesday, Nov. 26 (6 p.m.)
Muncie, Ind. (Worthen Arena)
Watch: ESPN3 | Listen: 96.7/104.9 | Live Stats | Tickets | Game Card

Setting the Stage
• Ball State hits the midway point of its five-game homestand Tuesday when Western Illinois visits Worthen Arena for the first meeting between the teams in 26 years. The Leathernecks are led by sixth-year head coach Billy Wright who served as an assistant coach at Ball State during the 2013-14 campaign, James Whitford's first guiding the BSU program.

• Ball State is coming off a 100-69 victory over Howard in which the Cardinals hit a school-record 21 3-pointers and placed five scorers in double figures, led by Kyle Mallers with a career-high 24 points and a school record-tying eight 3's. Western Illinois is coming off its first win of the year in a non-DI game against the Central Christian Saints, but three of the Leathernecks' four losses have come by single digits.

The Matchup
• Ball State and Western Illinois are meeting for the seventh time in history but the first time since 1993. The Cardinals have won four of the previous six meetings.

• Western Illinois head coach Billy Wright's one-year stint as an assistant at Ball State (2013-14) is only period in the past dozen years he has not been on the Leathernecks' bench. The Richmond, Indiana, native and former Bradley star was WIU's associate head coach before joining James Whitford's first staff at BSU. He then returned to Macomb as the Leathernecks' head coach the following year.

• Indianapolis native and preseason All-Summit League selection Kobe Webster leads Western Illinois with 17.6 points and 5.0 assists per game. Backcourt mate Zion Young adds 15.6 points per game for a Leatherneck squad that features four double-figure scorers. WIU put seven in double figures in its recent victory over Central Christian.

• Western Illinois has played one other MAC team this season, falling 86-81 on its home floor to Northern Illinois last week.

• Ball State sits at No. 102 in the Ken Pomeroy ratings. There are six MAC teams in the top 110.

What's Trending
• Ball State connected on 21-of-37 from 3-point range against Howard, breaking the previous school record of 18 treys set in a 2016 rout of Eastern Michigan. Kyle Mallers hit 8-of-10, including 7-of-8 in the first half, to match the individual school mark set by Dennis Trammell against Marshall in 2005. Trammell hit 8-of-9 against the Thundering Herd.

• Kyle Mallers was named Co-MAC West Division Player of the Week after averaging 20.5 points and hitting 12-of-17 (70.6 percent) from 3-point range over BSU's past two games. It's the second straight week the Cardinals have won the award. Tahjai Teague received it the week before after averaging 20 points and 9.5 rebounds in wins over UIC and Indiana State.

• The Cardinals assisted on 30 of their 36 made baskets against Howard, tying for the fifth-most assists in a game in program history and matching the most by a BSU team over the past quarter century. The Cardinals also had 30 in the aforementioned 2016 win over EMU.

• Senior point guard Josh Thompson had a career-high 10 assists, including nine in the first half alone, without a turnover in the Howard game. It's the most assists a BSU player has logged without a turnover since Tyrae Robinson had 10 without turning it over at Eastern Michigan in 2012. Thompson leads the MAC and ranks eighth in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio at 6-to-1. The Cardinals rank seventh nationally in that category as a team (1.78-to-1). They ranked 283rd a season ago (0.89-to-1).

Men’s Hoops Hosts Western Illinois for Earlier Tipoff Tuesday

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Players Mentioned

Kyle Mallers

Tahjai Teague

Josh Thompson