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KUTZTOWN, Pa. – The Kutztown University men's basketball team travels to East Stroudsburg University Saturday afternoon in an important Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) road game at Koehler Fieldhouse. Tip-off is set for 3 p.m.
The Golden Bears (13-2 overall, 9-2 PSAC) and Warriors (11-4, 8-3) enter Saturday's showdown coming off of different levels of emotion in their previous games.
Last Wednesday night, KU controlled the game on both ends of the floor, and cruised to an 85-49 victory against Cheyney University. Once that game went final, less than 10 minutes later, ESU had a game-tying layup blocked away at the buzzer, and fell to the PSAC East Division leader West Chester University 76-74. Kutztown sits in second place, one-and-a-half games behind the Golden Rams, and East Stroudsburg is in fourth place two-and-a-half games back from first.
The Maroon and Gold have won five straight games overall and three in-a-row against the Warriors, including both last season. The last loss came at Koehler Fieldhouse on Jan. 16, 2016. In the head coach
Bernie Driscoll era, KU is 9-8 at Koehler Fieldhouse.
Redshirt-junior
Anthony Lee (Willow Grove, Pa./Abington) and senior
Ethan Ridgeway (West Chester, Pa./Bayard Rustin) have led the way for KU from both ends, but it has seen increased contributions of late from senior
Rafiq Marshall (Philadelphia, Pa./Simon Gratz (Cheyney)) and redshirt-freshman
Moe Williams (Townsend, Del./Life Center Academy). Marshall has scored in double-figures in each of the last three games, while only accomplishing that feat three times all season prior to the last three games. Williams has recorded double-digits in points two out of the last three games, and has averaged six rebounds in that same time frame.
Against the Wolves on Wednesday, Kutztown had seven players score at least six points, and had 11 players score overall.
Ricky Hicks (Coatesville, Pa./Polytech) had seven points, and both
Max Wagner (Perkasie, Pa./Pennridge) and
Joseph O'Brien (Abington, Pa./Abington) added six.
Oenis Medina (Reading, Pa./Reading (Shippensburg)) (4),
Josh Townsend (Philadelphia, Pa./Imhotep Charter) (3),
David Johnson (Dunellen, N.J./Dunellen) (3) and
Kiyon Hardy (Philadelphia, Pa./The Shipley School) (2) also have the scoring column.
Lee is averaging 22.6 points per game (ppg), ranking third in the PSAC, and also leads NCAA Division II in three-point percentage (56.5). Ridgeway (17.3 ppg) is 12th in the conference in scoring, and leads Division II in assists per game (8.1).
East Stroudsburg does not have anyone inside of the top-28 in the conference in scoring, but it spreads the wealth offensively. Steve Harris (14.0 ppg) leads the way, followed by Kobi Nwandu (12.6) and Nick Giordano (11.5). After that, ESU has four other players averaging at least 7.0 ppg. KU has four players total over the 7.0 ppg mark.
Kutztown is looking for its third straight PSAC win on the road in 2018.
