ITTA BENA, Miss. – The Mississippi Valley State University men’s basketball program will matchup with one of the biggest surprises of the SWAC on Monday, facing a up-and-coming Alcorn Braves squad vying for a top seed.
Records: Mississippi Valley State (1-19, 1-9 SWAC) | Alcorn (8-14, 7-3 SWAC)
Location: Itta Bena, Mississippi – R.W. Harrison HPER Complex
Series History: Alcorn Leads 68-39
Last Meeting: February 13, 2021 | Alcorn 70, Mississippi Valley State 56 | Itta Bena, Mississippi (R.W. Harrison HPER Complex)
Winning Streak: Alcorn (W4) | Mississippi Valley State’s Last Win: February 16, 2019 (76-68)
Mississippi Valley State Overview
Mississippi Valley State mirrors its female counterparts in its propensity for the long ball, averaging the second-most threes in the league at 6.8 to go along with the second-best turnover margin of +2.5.
Kadar Waller went from off the board all the way up to number one regarding the best free-throw shooter in the SWAC, making 88.5% of his freebies which is good enough to rank top-30 nationally as well.
Caleb Hunter surpassed the illustrious 1,000 mark for his career, compiling 1,013 points over 72 contests. He is averaging the third-highest three-pointers per game average in the league (2.45) and seventh-best scoring average overall among the SWAC (13.9) as of February 5, 2022.
Elijah Davis has steadily held at or near the top of the assists leaderboard all year long, currently slotting second in the SWAC for assist-to-turnover ratio (1.79) and sixth in terms of dimes per game (3.5).
Scouting The Opponent: Alcorn Braves
The Purple and Gold were supposed to be in the middle-of-the-pack but instead are sitting in a four-way tie for second place at 7-3 in conference, just one game behind Southern for the top spot in the league.
If the Braves get into a free-throw battle down the stretch, Coach Hunter’s crew might be in trouble as Alcorn is the best shooting team from the line in the SWAC with a 73.9 percentage from the charity stripe as a unit.
Justin Thomas is one of the top-35 best stealers in the NCAA yet is only fifth in his own conference, averaging 2.06 takeaways per game while ranking second for assists a night (4.0) and third regarding assist-to-turnover ratio (1.57).
Lenell Henry, a grad transfer from Prairie View, has a pair of double-doubles to his credit and has racked up the eight-most blocks in the Southwestern Athletic Conference with 22 rejections.
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