Game Notes

Date: January 2, 2020
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Bolivar, Mo.

Bolivar, Mo. - Southwest Baptist will host former MIAA foe Lindenwood in the first game back from Christmas break. Both teams are coming off of a loss and will be looking to right the ship.

SCOUTING THE BEARCATS
In their first year as full-time members of the Great Lakes Valley Conference, the SBU Women's Basketball team finished 15-13 (9-11 GLVC) on the year. The GLVC allows just 8 teams to make the conference tournament. Finishing 10th out of 16 teams in the GLVC, the Bearcats narrowly missed the conference tournament for the second straight year.

The Bearcats are being led by senior Kyleigh Vaught who is averaging 12.8 points per game. Megan Worthington has stepped up to average 8.4 points per game after only averaging 4.7 minutes per game in the 2019-20 season. Senior Regan Tibbits is pulling down 5.4 rebounds per game to lead the Bearcats as well. SBU as a team is averaging 6.8 three pointers per game on an impressive 32.7% shooting.

SCOUTING THE LINDENWOOD LIONS
Lindenwood University is being led in nearly all statistics by senior Julia Ruzevich. Ruzevich is averaging 21.3 points per game and 10.3 rebounds per game which are both third best among the GLVC. Redshirt-junior Devin Fuhring is also contributing an impressive 16.3 points per game. The Lions have grabbed 41.8 rebounds per game as a team with a +10 margin over their opponents. Lindenwood started the season 0-2 but have since won 3 of their last 4 games to get back to .500.

THE COACHES
SBU head coach Kelsey Keizer begins her seventh season on the SBU bench after compiling a 81-90 (44-74 conf.) record while at SBU. Coach Keizer led two Bearcats to All-GLVC honors last season, and fell just short of the conference tournament as the GLVC takes only 8 teams to the postseason tournament.

Katie Falco enters her third year as the head coach of the Lindenwood Lions. Falco came in and made an immediate impact with a 21-8 record for the most wins by Lindenwood in their NCAA era. Falco previously held assistant coaching positions at both South Dakota State and Montana State prior to taking over at Lindenwood.

ALL-TIME SERIES
Southwest Baptist leads the series 8-6 with the Lions taking the last meeting. The Bearcats got their last win in 2018-19 when Lindenwood was ranked 24th in the nation at the time.