GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Davenport University men's basketball team will come home to host G-MAC power, Hillsdale, in the 2022-23 home opener on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. inside the DU Student Center. The Chargers come in at 4-0 and it will be the second all-time meeting between the two teams, the first coming at Hillsdale back in 2019.

•    William Jewell 90, Davenport 76: The Panthers trailed the Cardinals by as many as 20 (38-18, 40-20) in the first half. Despite outscoring them 52-47 in the second, the Panthers were never quite able to dig out of that early hole falling by a score of 90-76. Marcedus Leech Jr. paced the Panthers with 23 points, his fourth 20-point game in a Davenport uniform, Jeff Carrier scored a career-high 18 and Jakub Dombek added 16 in the first start of his career. Dombek led the way in rebounds with eight while Leech Jr. and Luke Bara (collegiate debut) each notched three assists. Defensively, Dombek and James Felton each tallied a block while Brackton Miller and Jaden Terrell (collegiate debut) each had a pair of steals.

•    Rockhurst 83, Davenport 72: Rockhurst turned 16 Davenport turnovers into 26 points and led the Panthers wire to wire en route to an 83-72 defeat. Jakub Dombek scored a career-high 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting, including 2-for-3 from deep and 4-of-6 at the free throw line, to go with nine rebounds and two assists. Marcedus Leech Jr. made it back-to-back 20-point performances with 20 points, two boards and a dime.

•    Scouting Hillsdale: For Hillsdale, the past two seasons have been among the best in the 120-plus year history of the program. In that time, the Chargers had a combined record of 44-11, a G-MAC regular season title, two NCAA Tournament appearances, two Sweet 16 berths, the program's first ever NCAA DII Midwest Regional title, and first ever Elite Eight appearance. This preseason, HC was picked to finish third in the G-MAC behind defending champion Walsh in first and perennial contender Findlay in second. Gone from last season's team are the program's first-ever consensus first-team All-American at the NCAA DII level, Patrick Cartier, as well as two All-G-MAC talents in Austen Yarian and Tavon Brown.

Fast forward to this season, year No. 16 under head coach, John Tharp, who's 301-152 at Hillsdale (66.4 winning percentage) and 504-259 in his coaching career (66.1 winning percentage). He's led the Chargers to unprecedented team success, including four appearances in the NCAA Division II Tournament (2012, 2018, 2021, and 2022), its only three regular-season conference titles since joining the NCAA Division II ranks in 1990, and a 76-22 record in the program's first five years competing in the G-MAC.

This season, Tharp has Hillsdale off to a 4-0 start (received 31 votes in NABC preseason poll) which includes wins over Dallas Baptist (64-57), Valdosta State (79-65), Wayne State (66-64), and Saginaw Valley State (71-55). Individually, a trio of Chargers are averaging at least 10 points per game including sophomore forward, Joe Reuter (13.8), senior guard, Kyle Goessler (12.5), and senior forward, Peter Kalthoff (11.3). They've used the same starting lineup each of the four games including those three along with senior guard, Jack Gohlke, and senior guard, Cole Nau. Reuter is bringing down seven rebounds per contest while he and Nau are both dishing out 3.8 assists per game.

LIVE COVERAGE
Wednesday, November 16 - 7:00 PM - Live Video($) - Live Stats