Men's Basketball at Home Wednesday to Face Detroit Mercy

The Ball State men's basketball team stays home to host Detroit Mercy at 7 p.m. on Wednesday for a rematch from last season in a game presented by Destination: Muncie.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+ with Mick Tidrow and David Eha on the call, while Mark Foerster and Scot Bunnell handle the radio broadcast on WMUN 1340AM - 92.5FM. Ball State leads the all-time series 3-2 after beating the Titans 68-65 last December in Detroit.

Ball State (1-3) got double figures scoring from five different players, but a strong offensive performance from Indiana State led the visiting Sycamores to a 94-84 win on Saturday afternoon at Worthen Arena. The Cardinals will look for their second home win in three tries after defeating Franklin College 87-60 in the home opener on Nov. 8.

Detroit Mercy (2-2) most recently lost 82-67 to Toledo at home on Saturday after beating Niagara 84-78 in overtime on Nov. 10 in Detroit. The Titans are in their first year under the direction of head coach Mark Montgomery, who faced Ball State 18 times as the coach at Northern Illinois from 2011-21.

Ball State will fly south to Estero, Fla., for three games at the Gulf Coast Showcase beginning Monday at Noon vs Eastern Kentucky.

CARDINAL DIRECTIONS

Ball State features a revamped roster bolstered by five incoming transfers and three true freshmen while returning a majority of the frontcourt from last season's team including Mickey Pearson Jr., Ben Hendriks and Mason Jones.
The Cardinals were picked to finish sixth in the Mid-American Conference by the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook and seventh by the league's head coaches in the preseason poll released in late October.
The Cardinals' roster is deep in experience with four sixth-year seniors in Ethan Brittain-Watts, Ben Hendriks, Jeremiah Hernandez and Mickey Pearson Jr. Ball State has the most student-athletes in their sixth year of college of any men's basketball team in NCAA Division I (Southern Miss has three sixth-year and two seventh-year seniors).
Ball State's student-athletes have played in 603 games and made 254 starts at the Division I level entering the season, while Hernandez and Payton Sparks have been All-Conference performers.
Sparks was recently picked First Team All-MAC in the preseason poll after being a two-time Second Team selection in his first two seasons in Muncie. Hernandez averaged 17.2 points and 3.3 rebounds per game last season at USI to be named First Team All-Ohio Valley Conference.

INSTANT OFFENSE: True freshman guard TJ Burch tallied 14 points, two rebounds and an assist on Saturday against Indiana State to provide a spark off the bench.

The Dallas, Texas native is third on the team in average scoring (10.3 points per game) in just 13.7 minutes per contest.

FAMILIAR FOES: Ball State's matchup with Detroit Mercy represents its second of five games this season against nonconference opponents that the Cardinals also faced last year.

Including Indiana State last Saturday, Ball State will also play SIUE, Bellarmine and Evansville. The Cardinals won 68-65 last December at Detroit.

SLAM JAM: Jermahri Hill's one-hand slam dunk for an and-one at the end of the first half last Wednesday at Dayton was the No. 1 play on SportsCenter's Top 10 list.

Hill led the Cardinals with 25 points, seven rebounds and three assists for the game and has scored the fifth-most points (70) in the Mid-American Conference through the season's first four contests.

SPREADING THE WEALTH: Hill, Mickey Pearson Jr. and Payton Sparks shared the team lead with 17 points in the win over Franklin College.

Burch added 13 points in his collegiate debut, while a total of 10 Cardinals scored in the home opener. Ten student-athletes got at least 14 minutes of playing time.

WE'LL PLAY ANYWHERE: Last Wednesday's game at Dayton was the second of five states the Cardinals will play in away from home during the nonconference season.

Ball State is scheduled to play three games in Florida (Nov. 25-27), at SIUE in Illinois (Dec. 8) and at Bellarmine in Kentucky (Dec. 14) after playing at Georgia State in the season opener.

IN-STATE BATTLES: Ball State is set to host Franklin (Nov. 8), Indiana State (Nov. 16), Evansville (Dec. 21) and Anderson (Dec. 31) for a quartet of in-state rivalries this season.

The men's basketball program hasn't hosted at least four teams from the state of Indiana since 2013-14 when that team played Taylor, Butler, Valparaiso and Oakland City at Worthen Arena.

PEARSON POUNDING THE GLASS: Mickey Pearson Jr. tied his career-best with 13 rebounds in the season opener at Georgia State before grabbing eight against over Franklin College.

The forward also notched 13 boards on Nov. 7, 2022 against Earlham at Worthen Arena. Pearson Jr. averages 7.25 rebounds per game which ranks fifth in the MAC.

PRODUCTION IN BALL STATE DEBUT: Jermahri Hill (17 points, six rebounds), Ethan Brittain-Watts (12 points) and Juanse Gorosito (12) were the top three scorers for the Cardinals at Georgia State, with each playing in their first official games at Ball State.

Brittain-Watts transferred in from Boston prior to the 2023-24 season but had to sit out last year due to injury, while Hill (South Plains JC) and Gorosito (Portland) are guards who joined the team over the summer.

CARDINALS SOAR AT THE LINE: Ball State led the MAC and ranked 27th nationally in free throw percentage (76.7) last season, which was the best mark in program history, while getting to the line at a 21.5 free throw attempts per game clip which was second in the MAC.

Those numbers should be bolstered by the addition of Hernandez, who was prolific at both getting to the line and making free throws last season. The graduate student made the 13th-most free throws (200) in the country while attempting the 14th-most (247) for an 81.0 average.

BROUGHT THE SPARKS BACK: Cardinals' fans are happy to welcome back senior center Payton Sparks, who was the 2022 MAC Freshman of the Year and Second Team All-MAC in 2022 and 2023 before transferring to Indiana.

Sparks enters the season with 880 career points and 576 career rebounds and ranks No. 25 in Ball State history with 532 rebounds as a Cardinal.

HOME STATE HEROES: Brittain-Watts (2019), Zane Doughty, Joey Hart and Jones (2023) were each named Indiana High School All-Stars, while three more Cardinals also had ties to the state before arriving in Muncie.

Ball State has the second-most players from Indiana high schools among Indiana-based Division I teams behind Purdue.

WORLD FLYERS: The 2024-25 Ball State roster consists of student-athletes from three different countries in addition to the United States of America.

Juanse Gorosito (Argentina), Hendriks (Canada) and Jurica Zagorsak (Croatia) are international Cardinals this season. Interestingly, Juanse, Ben and Jurica were born on different continents, so Ball State has student-athletes from North America, South America and Europe on the team.

BIG MEN CAUSE BIG PROBLEMS: Sparks (6-foot-10), Hendriks (6-foot-10) and Doughty (6-foot-9) are each north of 240 pounds to provide a physical interior presence for Ball State this season.

Joining the trio in the frontcourt at 6-foot-7 or taller are Jones, Zagorsak and Pearson Jr.

TRANSFERS FROM ALL OVER: Each of Ball State's seven student-athletes who have transferred into the program have come from different college basketball conferences.

The list includes Brittain-Watts (Patriot League, Boston), Juanse Gorosito (West Coast Conference, Portland), Hart (SEC, Kentucky), Hernandez (Ohio Valley Conference, USI), Pearson Jr. (Big 12, TCU), Sparks (Big Ten, Indiana) and Jermahri Hill who played junior college ball at South Plains in Levelland, Texas.

Men's Basketball at Home Wednesday to Face Detroit Mercy

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Players Mentioned

Ethan Brittain-Watts

TJ Burch

Zane Doughty

Juanse Gorosito

Joey Hart

Ben Hendriks

Jeremiah Hernandez

Jermahri Hill

Mason Jones

Mickey Pearson Jr.

Payton Sparks

Jurica Zagorsak