Game Notes
CLARION – It will be a midseason showdown for first place in the PSAC West when IUP visits Clarion at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in men's basketball action.
Clarion (11-4 overall, 7-2 PSAC West) enters the game a game back of first-place and two-time defending PSAC West and PSAC champion IUP (11-2, 8-1) as the conference season closes in on its midway point.
The game can be heard on
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The Golden Eagles, who have split the last four meetings with the Crimson Hawks, enter the game having won 10 of 11 including six of their first seven on an eight-game home stand that ends Saturday.
IUP, meanwhile, which has lost just 11 games since the start of the 2010 season, enters the contest ranked 14
th in the nation and has won four straight and seven of eight.
The game features five of the top 12 scorers in the PSAC with IUP being led by senior guards Ashton Smith (No. 2 at 19.7 ppg) and Julian Sanders (No. 7 at 17.1 ppg) and Clarion being paced by freshman guard
Winfield Willis (No. 9 at 16.7 ppg), the leading freshman scorer in the PSAC, junior guard
Calvin Edwards (No. 10 at 15.9 ppg) and senior forward
Paul McQueen (No. 12 at 15.6 ppg). McQueen is the top three-point shooter in the PSAC at 56.3 percent while Smith ranks third at 49 percent and Sanders fourth at 47.6 percent. Sanders leads the conference with 3.1 threes per game while Smith is 13
th in assists at 3.5 helpers per contest.
Clarion has two of the top 12 rebounders in the conference with senior Bud Teer ranking No. 2 at 9.4 rpg while adding 11.7 ppg and shooting 59.8 percent from the floor, the sixth-best mark in the PSAC, and sophomore
Mike Kromka contributing 6.5 rpg to go with 8.2 ppg. Kromka has been particularly strong of late averaging 11.3 rpg and 10.0 ppg over his last three contest with 26 boards in his last two, the first time in his career he has had back-to-back double-digit board contests.
Junior
Leonard Patterson runs the point for Clarion and is 10
th in the PSAC in assists per game (3.8) while adding 8.2 ppg, while sophomore point guard
Nathaniel Wilson, who joined the Golden Eagles last weekend, has been a welcome addition with 10 assists, five steals and three blocked shots in his first three games.
IUP isn't as deep scoring wise as Clarion with the Crimson Hawks third-leading scorer, Devante Chance, averaging 7.5 ppg and the fourth-leading scorer, Anthony Wells, coming in at 6.1 ppg. Rebounding wise, the Crimson Hawks have five players averaging at least four rebounds a game led by Josh Wiegand's 4.6 rpg.
After Saturday's game, Clarion is on the road for a pair of PSAC West contests next week with games at Lock Haven (8 p.m.) Wednesday and Gannon (3 p.m.) Saturday before returning home to host California at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Jan. 25.
NOTES – The teams have split their last four meetings with each team winning once at home and once on the road … Last year, Clarion broke IUP's 30-game home win streak with a 73-68 win in Indiana before the Crimson Hawks returned the favor by topping the Golden Eagles 87-80 at Tippin in a game that saw IUP scoring the game's final eight points, all from the free-throw line, to overcome a one-point deficit with 25 seconds to play … In 2010, Clarion handed IUP its only PSAC West loss with a 71-62 win at Tippin Gym after the Crimson Hawks had beaten the Golden Eagles 76-60 earlier in the season in Indiana … IUP is No. 2 in the PSAC in scoring defense (61.8 ppg allowed), second in field-goal defense (40.9 percent shooting against), leads the league in three-point shooting (39.6 percent) and is third in overall shooting (49.3 percent) but just 12
th in scoring (72.3 ppg) … Clarion is fifth in the conference in scoring (79.5 ppg), seventh in scoring defense (72.3 ppg allowed), fourth in shooting (48.1 percent), third in three-point shooting (37.8 percent) and third in free-throw shooting (76.7 percent) … Both teams have suffered two-point, last-second home losses to Bloomsburg.
