By Todd Golden
TERRE HAUTE — Indiana State’s final dress rehearsal of the 2008 preseason will come after three other Missouri Valley Conference schools have begun their regular season.
No one at ISU is going to complain about finishing its exhibition season late in comparison to its conference foes. St. Joseph’s visits Hulman Center at 7 p.m. tonight to face a team that needs all of the work it can get as gaining experience for Tuesday’s regular season opener at Northern Illinois.
“I want to eliminate the careless turnovers we had [against Albion in a 69-64 victory last Friday]. Some of those were partly nerves and jitters, part of it was not understanding the offense totally,” ISU coach Kevin McKenna said.
ISU had 16 turnovers against the Britons, who led for much of the game. ISU also shot just 26.1 percent from the field in the first half before warming up in the second to pull ahead of Albion. The performance was indicative of a team that has 10 new players trying to feel each other out.
“Part of it is that. There were seven seniors on Albion’s team. No matter what level, if a player knows a system, they run it to death. We’re not in that mode yet as far as executing, but when we did, we got some good looks,” McKenna said.
St. Joseph’s defeated Athletes In Action 80-77 on Oct. 27. The Pumas shot 50 percent from the field in the first half to build a 49-41 lead it never surrendered.
The Pumas are experienced up front. Forwards A.J. Mahar and Brandon Mayse are seniors. They are supported by fellow senior Will Jones in the backcourt. Mayse and Mahar combined to score 27 points in St. Joseph’s win against AIA, while Jones scored 10. In the experience department, the Pumas are similar to Albion — all of the Britons’ leading scorers against ISU were upperclassmen.
ISU doesn’t have much time to absorb whatever lessons it learns against St. Joseph’s tonight. The regular season begins Tuesday at Northern Illinois.
“We’re going to have three more practices before we play another game, so it’s kind of natural to think, ‘this is the start of our season.’ In three days, we play another game. We’re going to try and play a lot of guys, play some combinations, and get some guys some experience.,” McKenna said.
