Pep Rally Photos
BILLINGS, Mont. – The 2010-11 Montana State Billings men's basketball season gets underway Tuesday evening with a 7 p.m. tip scheduled against the University of Mary at Alterowitz Gymnasium on the MSUB campus.
Head Coach George Pfeifer enters his third year at the helm of the Yellowjacket program, which has witnessed the Yellowjackets accomplish incredible improvement in the last two seasons. The program was 1-28 the year prior to Pfeifer's arrival, with a 'negative' scoring margin, nearly 27 points per game.
Last year's team took another huge step in getting the program turned back around, finishing 15-10. They were 9-7 in the conference and just finished on the outside looking in at a berth to the NCAA Tournament with a fourth place finish in the GNAC.
They had wins over the Pac West Champions, Dixie State, beat Central Washington in Ellensburg for the time in school history, and had sweeps over three league opponents. Down the stretch they won five of their last seven games.
Gone from last year's squad are several key players. In fact, 59.1 points per game and 25.2 rebounds per game have got to be replaced. Two-time all-GNAC forward Derek Wright (12.5 pts, 5.6 reb, 11 blk), honorable mention point guard Davell Jackson (13.3 pts, 4.4 reb, 5.9 a, 55 stl), as well as forward Mike McCrary (9.2 pts, 4.2 reb) and shooting guard Lasha Parghalava (10.4 pts, 2.9 reb, 16 stl), will be difficult to replace.
The top returning player for the Yellowjackets is senior and second team all-GNAC selection, DeAndre Chambers (15.2 pts, 4.3 reb, 14 blk, 23 stl). Last year, Chambers began the season coming off the bench, but eventually started 12 games, all in the second half of the season.
The Jackets have picked up the talent coming into the season with the additions Jaxon Myaer (5-10, 175), a transfer from Utah State, and Raason Young. Myaer's last game was in the NCAA Division I National Tournament with the Aggies. Young also played his last game in the NCAA National Tournament, coming from the University of Montana where he was an All-American candidate coming out of Hagerstown J.C. in Maryland.
The Yellowjackets are coming off a 66-60 victory over Division I Eastern Washington a week ago. In that game, Chambers went for a team-high 24 points and grabbed four boards. Also standing out was Emery Henning, as the Walla Wall transfer scored 13 points and pulled down 10 rebounds for a double-double. Young scored 14 points and had eight boards.
As a team, MSUB shot 42.9 percent from the field and were 13-of-22 form the charity stripe. The defense held the Eagles to just 25 percent shooting and a dismal 20 percent from downtown. The Eagles did manage to get to the free throw 40 times as three Yellowjackets fouled out of the game.
The University of Mary will prove to be a very tough opponent, as the Marauders return four of their five starters from last season and seven of their 11 lettermen. UM went 15-13 last season and finished 11-9 in the Northern Sun Conference.
All MSUB home contests can be seen live on the new Jacket Vision webstreaming page. Please log on to www.msubsports.com and click on webstreaming under the Multimedia tab. Ken Adelblue will provide play-by-play coverage of all MSUB men's and women's basketball games this season. Fans can view live statistics by navigating to the men's basketball schedule page on www.msubsports.com.
