Men's Hoops Hosts Evergreen, Travels to Wisconsin

THIS WEEK: Pacific Lutheran opens the home portion of its 2009-10 men's basketball season on Tuesday night when it hosts the Evergreen State College Geoducks starting at 7 p.m. in Olson Auditorium. On Thursday, the Lutes board an airplane for a trip to Wisconsin, where they will play Ripon (Wis.) on Saturday and UW-Platteville on Sunday at the UW-Platteville Thanksgiving Classic.

HOME OPENER: For Lutes fans, tonight's game marks one of only two opportunities to see the team at home prior to the start of the conference season in January. PLU's other home game comes on Dec. 12 when it hosts Northwest University from Kirkland. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. for that game in Olson Auditorium. To take it a step further, PLU plays only two of its first 11 games at home. In addition to a total of six non-conference road games in November and December, PLU opens its conference season in early January with games at Linfield, at Pacific and at Puget Sound. Pacific Lutheran's conference home opener is scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 9, against Lewis & Clark.

ABOUT EVERGREEN: The Geoducks come into Olson Auditorium with a 3-2 record, including wins over NCAA Division II Saint Martin's and PLU's Northwest Conference foes, Puget Sound (108-97) and Lewis & Clark (71-44). Guard Nathan Menefee averages 32.4 points per game and went off for 57 against Puget Sound. He also contributes 5.0 assists per game to the Geoducks' cause. Josh Troyer averages 9.8 points, followed by Anthony Gallagher with 9.2 points per game. Julio Feliciano is a big body under the basket and averages 8.2 rebounds per contest.

ON TO WISCONSIN: On the docket at the UW-Platteville Thanksgiving Classic are games against Ripon and the host school. The Lutes will open the tournament by facing Ripon at 6 p.m. local time on Saturday, and they will close the event at 3 p.m. local time the following day against Platteville. Ripon will enter the tournament with a 1-1 record while Platteville is 2-1 with two games to play before it goes up against PLU. UW-Platteville has a rich Division III tradition with national titles in 1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999.

HEARTBREAK OPENER: Concordia improved its season record to 5-0 last Saturday night in Cavalier Gymnasium, but the visiting Lutes made the hosts work for every bit of their 76-74 non-conference men's basketball win. PLU, playing its season opener, challenged the Cavaliers right down to the last basket. Concordia had built a comfortable 44-34 lead at the half, but the Lutes came on strong in the final half before succumbing at the end. Pacific Lutheran took a 70-66 lead on a pair of Andrew Earnest free throws with 3:49 remaining in the game. When Kyle MacTaggart hit a jumper with 2:41 left, the Lutes went ahead 72-67. Concordia eventually tied the game at 74-74 with 36 seconds left on a Dustin Hiebert layup. PLU had a chance to score the winning points but turned the ball over with four seconds remaining. That gave Hiebert the opportunity to scoring the winning layup at the buzzer, giving the Cavs the win. Junior wing Curtis Trondsen poured in a game-high 21 points to lead the Lutes, going 8-for-19 from the floor with four "treys." MacTaggart added 17 points for the Lutes, who also got 12 points from Victor Bull and a team-high seven rebounds from Gabe Smith. PLU head coach Steve Dickerson called his team's second half performance the "best second half" of any of his teams in three years and, now, one game as the Lutes' coach.

- PLU -