Men's Basketball to Host Rose-Hulman in Exhibition at Worthen

Thursday, November 2

Muncie, IN

7:00 p.m.

Ball State University

Rose-Hulman

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Men's Basketball to Host Rose-Hulman in Exhibition at Worthen

October 31, 2023 | Men's Basketball

By: Justin Borowitz

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The Ball State men's basketball team hosts Rose-Hulman on Thursday at 7 p.m. in Worthen Arena in the Cardinals' lone exhibition before the regular season.

The game will not be broadcast or streamed, so fans will need to be in attendance to get their first look at this year's Cardinals.

Ball State recorded a 20-12 record (11-7 Mid-American Conference) in 2022-23 to earn the No. 4 seed in the MAC Tournament. Head coach Michael Lewis enters his second season leading the Cardinals after recent stops as an assistant at UCLA, Nebraska and Butler.

Juniors Mickey Pearson Jr. and Basheer Jihad headline the returners, as they averaged 7.7 points and 5.5 rebounds and 7.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game, respectively, in 2022-23. Three transfers and five true freshmen bolster Ball State's 2023-24 team.

SCOUTING ROSE-HULMAN: The Fightin' Engineers went 17-11 and 12-6 in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference of NCAA Division III last season, which was the first for head coach Nick Sales at Rose-Hulman. The HCAC preseason poll recently released had the Engineers 5^th in the 10-team conference.

Junior forward Miles McGowen is back after scoring 13.4 points and securing 8.8 rebounds per game to be named First Team All-HCAC. Senior guard Bradley Harden (9.1 points and 3.9 assists per game), sophomore guard Kobe Stoudemire (5.7 points and 1.8 assists) and junior forward Simon Blair (3.6 points and 4.4 rebounds) are other returning Fightin' Engineers to watch.

CARDINAL DIRECTIONS

Ball State's 20 wins last year were its most since 2016-17 when that team won 21. This season's Cardinals will look for back-to-back 20-win schedules for the first time since that 2016-17 season.
The Cardinals are a young group, as the roster includes only one senior or graduate student (Ethan Brittain-Watts). Ball State returns only 21.5 percent of minutes played and 19.6 percent of points scored from last year's team.
Brittain-Watts (Boston University), Jalin Anderson (Loyola Marymount) and Davion Bailey (Southeastern CC) form Ball State's trio of transfers.
Joey Brown (Indianapolis), Zane Doughty (Indianapolis), Mason Jones (Valparaiso, Ind.), Trent Middleton Jr. (Philadelphia) and Jurica Zagorsak (Zadar, Croatia) are the Cardinals' quintet of true freshmen.