Complete Game Notes

GAME QUICK FACTS
Penn State Abington (0-0) at Millersville (0-0)
Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008 - 8 p.m.
Pucillo Gymnasium, Millersville, Pa.
Audio: MSBN

TICKETS
Adults: $6.00
Students: $3.00
Millersville Students: Free with I.D.

THE SERIES
All-Time Series: First Meeting
First Meeting: Nov. 15, 2008
Last Meeting: N/A
Current Streak: N/A

ABOUT THE GAME
•    Millersville opens its 2008-09 campaign Saturday, Nov. 15 at Pucillo Gymansium at 8 p.m. against Penn State Abington. The Marauders are coming off back-to-back NCAA Division II East Region title game appearances and have tallied 50 wins in the last two years. The team, however, returns just one full-time starter and six letterwinners. The Marauders must also find a replacement for two-time PSAC East Athlete of the Year Charlie Parker, who graduated in 2008. Parker finished his career second on Millersville's all-time scoring list with 1,949 points.
•    Saturday will be the first look at a Millersville team that has eight newcomers ready to contribute. Included in the recruiting class were four juniors, one sophomore and five freshmen—two of which will red-shirt this season.
•    Coach Fred Thompson is entering his 11th season at Millersville and is looking to take his team to an eighth PSAC Tournament and a fifth NCAA Tournament. In Millersville history, Thompson is second only to John Kochan (1983-96) in overall PSAC appearances, but needs only one more tournament win to vault Kochan for the most PSAC tournament victories as a Millersville coach. If Millersville appears in the NCAA Tournament this year, it will be the third time in school history that Millersville has earned three-straight berths.
•    Saturday's contest will be broadcast live on the Marauders Sports Broadcasting Network (MSBN). Fans can access the broadcast on www.millersvilleathletics.com. Fans can follow live stat updates at millersvilleathletics.com as well.

ABOUT THE OPPONENT
•    Penn State Abington is coming off a 2007-08 season in which it posted a 20-6 mark and captured the PSUAC Championship. Abington has won the title twice since 2004-05. Abington won 15 of their last 18 games last year, losing only once to a conference opponent and defeated Penn State New Kensington 76-58 at the Bryce Jordan Center on March 8 for the conference title.
•    The 2008-09 team boasts a veteran-laden roster that includes three juniors and three seniors.
•    Penn State Abington enters the season with a new head coach, but it is a familiar face for Marauder fans. Jason Curbison, a 2000 graduate of Millersville, was hired to replace Ameen Akbar, who resigned in April.
•    Curbison was a reserve on the Millersville squad from 1997-00 and graduated in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in psychology.
•    Curbison had served as an assistant coach at Rowan University five years. At Rowan, he helped to guide a team that was ranked in the top 25 in NCAA Division III in field goal defense three of four years. Curbison was part of a program that had a .724 winning percentage over 11 years, the 10th highest in NCAA Division III.
•    Prior to Rowan, Curbison served as the head assistant coach at Goldey Beacom, and as assistant coach at Manor College.

THE LAST MEETING
•    Penn State Abington is making its first-ever visit to Pucillo Gymnasium, and it will be the first-ever meeting between the two programs. Millersville, however, is 7-3 all-time against Penn State affiliated programs including 1-0 against Penn State University (25-21 in 1908-09). The Marauders three losses came to Penn State Mont Alto in 1906-07, 1907-08 and 1908-09. Millersville has faced a Penn State affiliated school only four times since 1911 and are 4-0 in those meetings with three wins over Penn State Harrisburg. The average winning margin of those four games is 43 points and Millersville is averaging 99.25 points per game.

MIXED RESULTS
•    Despite being one of the winningest programs in the PSAC with 1,293 all-time victories and a .622 winning percentage, Millersville is just 66-42 all-time in season openers. In Fred Thompson's 10 years at the helm, he is 183-104 overall but just 4-6 in season openers. Three of those losses came in his first four seasons with the club and five of the six losses have been by six points or less including two losses by two points (69-67 at Shippensburg in 2006 and 75-73 to Southern Connecticut State in overtime in 1999) and one by one point (77-76 to W.Va. State in 2005).
•    While there is no correlation to the opening game result and the final season win total, the Marauders have never posted a losing season under Thompson after winning the season opener and three of the four teams to win in the opener went on to register at least 22 victories.
•    The Marauders may have mixed results in season openers, but Thompson's programs have been notoriously fast starters. Last season, the team won five in a row to start the year and 16-of-17 in 2006-07. Under Thompson's watch the team has also opened seasons by winning 9-of-10, 7-of-8 twice and six in a row once.

THE LAST TIME OUT
•    The Millersville University men's basketball team could not hold onto a four-point halftime lead as the Marauders fell to the California of Pennsylvania Vulcans, 64-52, and ended their season with a 22-10 record.
•     Tournament MVP Ron Banks scored a game-high 27 points and the Vulcan defense held Millersville to just 19.4 percent (6-31) shooting in the second half.  The Vulcans will take on Alaska-Anchorage, winner of the West Region, in the elite eight beginning next week.
•    The ninth-ranked Vulcans, trailing 33-29 at halftime, used a 9-0 run to start the second half and grabbed a lead they would never relinquish.  The Marauders never came closer than four the rest of the way as the Vulcans hit their final six frees throws to seal the win.

MARAUDER MILESTONES
•    Millersville's men's basketball program began in 1899 and since then, it has compiled 1,293 wins, leaving it just seven victories shy of 1,300 all-time wins. Entering the 2008-09 season, Millersville is 11th among all Division II teams in all-time victories and 25th by winning percentage.
•    While he has only played in a Millersville uniform for two seasons, Reggie Bates has rapidly climbed up the all-time scoring list. His career average of 16.0 points per game and 1,026 total points places him 34th all-time and just one point behind Lyman Reifsnyder '42. Bates' scored 615 points a year ago and with a repeat effort, he would finish with 1,641 points and 10th all-time just ahead of Lance Gelnett '92, who was inducted into the Millersville University Athletic Hall of Fame this year. Bates is also on pace to be the top-scoring three-year player in school history.
•    Only two coaches in Millersville men's basketball history have reached the 200-win plateau and Fred Thompson is only 16 wins shy of joining John Kochan (285-96) and Richard DeHart (321-298).  Thompson could be the second-fastest coach in school history to achieve the milestone. It took Kochan into his ninth season to win his 200th game. DeHart won his 200th game with his third victory in his 15th year.

EARLY EXPECTATIONS
•    After posting a 22-10 overall record and an 8-4 mark in the PSAC East a year ago, the Marauders were pegged to finish second by the coaches in the PSAC Preseason Poll. 
•    The favorite in the Eastern Division was defending champion Kutztown. The Golden Bears posted a 19-9 overall mark and a 10-2 mark in the division last year and return all five starters including Preason All-PSAC East picks David Ben and Stephen Dennis. East Stroudsburg finished fourth in the East last year but was picked third in this year's preseason rankings. The Warriors are led by preseason selection Chris Bach. Cheyney, which shared the PSAC East crown with Kutztown, was picked fourth. The Wolves have a new head coach Dominique Stephens but return preseason pick Tyrone Smith.
•    Mansfield, picked fifth, was followed by Shippensburg, which is making the shift to the Eastern Division after the PSAC expansion. West Chester and preseason selection Kenneth St. George were voted seventh, and Bloomsburg was pegged eighth.
•    For Millersville, Reggie Bates was named Preseason All-PSAC East for the second-consecutive season.

SUPER SCORER
•    Reggie Bates produced one of the best single seasons in school history last year and is looking to become the third-straight Marauder to earn PSAC East Athlete of the Year honors if he can duplicate his junior season efforts.
•    Bates scored 12.8 points per game as a sophomore in 2006-07, but 2007-08 was truly his breakthrough season. Bates led the team in scoring with 19.2 points per game and produced the sixth-best single season point total in school history with 615. Bates scored in double figures in all but five games and scored at least six points in every game. He also produced 15 20-point games—two of which came in the NCAA East Regional—and four 30-point outings. Bates was responsible for four of the team's five 30-point games during the year. His 36 point performance against Slippery Rock on Dec. 2 was the top scoring performance of the season for Millersville and the second-best performance in the PSAC.
•    In the second round of the NCAA East Regional, Bates scored 32 points to become the 35th player in school history to total 1,000 points. It took him only 64 games to reach that milestone.
•    Bates finished the season ranked second in the PSAC in scoring average and first in field goals made and total points scored. His points per game average was 34th in Division II as well.
•    His accuracy from the field was also impressive, hitting 47.2 percent of his field goal attempts.

ADVANTAGE PUCILLO
•    Since Fred Thompson took over the program in 1998-99, the Marauders are incredible 109-34 at home in Pucillo Gymnasium. The Marauders have posted a 26-4 home mark in the last two seasons. The team has won no fewer than eight home games each season. The Marauders recorded eight of their 10 wins at home in 2005-06 and nine of their 12 wins came at home in 1999-00.  
•    Maybe even more impressive is the 44-16 PSAC East record during that stretch. Millersville is 9-1 against PSAC East teams in Pucillo in the last two seasons.

NEW FACES
•    The Marauders return only one starter (Reggie Bates) from last season and lost 62 percent of its scoring and rebounding.
•    Thompson filled the roster with five freshmen and five transfers. Four of the transfers gained experience in the junior college ranks and T.J. Lundy, who sat out last season because of the NCAA's two-time transfer rule played at St. Francis (Pa.) and Division II Tampa before coming to Millersville.
•    The incoming class is also heavy at the guard position. Seven of the incoming players play guard and five are listed at 6-foot or shorter.
•    A pair of newcomers, Jason Blake and Palmer McDurfee are slated to be in the starting lineup for the opener. Blake, a 6-2 point guard, played two seasons at the Community College of Philadelphia. McDurfee, a 5-9 shooting guard,  was the leading scorer for the Community College of Beaver County a year ago.
•    The freshmen accumulated plenty of high school accolades. Mike Seibert was a third team all-state player at Columbia. Cullen Murray-Kemp was the Bayside Conference Player of the Year in 2007-08, and Brandon Widener, who graduated from Penn Manor in 2006-07, was an All-Lancaster-Lebanon First Team pick.

MARCH MADNESS
•    Extending the season into March is becoming commonplace at Millersville, and in 2007-08, the Marauders earned their 20th bid to the PSAC Tournament since 1984 and the seventh under the direction of Fred Thompson. Millersville has also won at least one game in the tournament in each of their last four appearances.
•    Despite falling in the PSAC Tournament semifinals to Edinboro, the Marauders entered the NCAA Division II Tournament as the No. 7 seed in the East Region and promptly knocked off Edinboro and Pitt-Johnstown to make their second-straight appearance and third since 2003 in the East Region title game. Top seeded California (Pa.) halted Millersville's quest for an Elite Eight appearance by a 64-52 score.
•    Among PSAC programs, Millersville has four NCAA Tournament bids since 2003. Only California (Pa.) has more with five.