OCU at Mid-America Christian men's basketball preview

Stars take aim at gaining home game in Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals

5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25
Gaulke Activity Center in Oklahoma City

THE MATCHUP: Oklahoma City University seeks to clinch a quarterfinal home game in the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament in a road game at defending national champion Mid-America Christian.

ABOUT THE STARS: Oklahoma City fell 75-58 to Southwestern Assemblies of God (Texas) on Thursday night at Abe Lemons Arena. The Stars (19-8, 10-7 SAC) is playing for the third or the fourth seed in the conference.
Syrus McDonald, a 6-foot senior from Flint, Mich., posted 18 points, six rebounds and two assists. McDonald shot 6-for-9 from the field. He records 9.8 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. Xavier Smith, a 6-9 senior from Richardson, Texas, contributed 12 points, nine rebounds and five blocked shots. Smith averages 15.3 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.56 blocks a contest. He has produced 17.2 points and 9.6 rebounds a game the past five games.
OCU has blocked 5.15 shots a game to rank third in the NAIA. To see how the Stars compare to the rest of the NAIA statistically, click here.
The Stars went to 19th in the latest national top 25. OCU has been picked to take second in the SAC according to the preseason coaches' poll. Oklahoma City owns six NAIA national championships won in 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2007 and 2008 as well as 12 SAC regular-season titles.
OCU holds a 17-8 advantage in the all-time series against Mid-America Christian. The Stars topped Mid-America 100-90 on Jan. 5 at Abe Lemons Arena. McDonald busted loose for a season-best 33 points.

ABOUT THE EVANGELS: St. Gregory's scraped out a 50-49 win over Mid-America Christian on Thursday in Shawnee, Okla. Mid-America Christian (15-14, 6-11 SAC) rallied from 13 points down to tie the game 49-49 on Malcolm Mann's free throw with 23 seconds left, but St. Gregory's Rodney Smith had the winning free throw with five seconds remaining.
Mann, a 6-3 senior, buoyed Mid-America with 17 points, nine rebounds and two steals. Mann averages 9.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game.
Mid-America Christian leads the NAIA with 308 3-pointers made and 10.62 treys per game. Mid-America was the preseason favorite to win the SAC.

ABOUT THE COACHES: Vinay Patel enters his second season as OCU head coach. In his first year, Oklahoma City finished 15-11 and tied for second in the Sooner Athletic Conference. Before coming to OCU, he spent one season as Rogers State's assistant coach and aided the Hillcats to a 20-8 season led by conference player of the year Frederico Santos. Patel spent nine years as assistant at West Texas A&M. During that time, West Texas went to the NCAA Division II Tournament five times, won the Lone Star Conference championship and took two Lone Star South Division titles. He elevated to the interim head-coaching position before he ended his time at West Texas A&M.
Josh Gamblin is in his second season has head coach of the Evangels. In his first season at the helm, Gamblin guided the Evangels to their first NAIA championship. At 27, he was the youngest head coach to guide a four-year school to a national championship. Gamblin came to MACU from the University of Oklahoma, where he was a graduate assistant coach under head coach Lon Kruger. Prior to arriving at OU, Gamblin served two years at Southwestern Christian as assistant coach.

POSTSEASON IMPLICATIONS: Oklahoma City could be anywhere from third to sixth in the league standings. With a win, the Stars could be the third seed in the SAC Tournament with a Southwestern Christian win over John Brown (Ark.) and a Wayland Baptist (Texas) win over USAO. With a loss, OCU could be the fourth seed in the conference tournament with wins by John Brown and USAO.
Mid-America Christian would be the eighth seed with a win and a Southwestern Assemblies of God (Texas) win over St. Gregory's. Mid-America would be out of the tournament with a loss.
The top four seeds in the conference tournament host quarterfinal games Tuesday. The remainder of the SAC Tournament will be March 3-4 at Abe Lemons Arena. NAIA Division I Tournament berths will be at stake as the nation's premier NAIA basketball conference stages its postseason tournament.

FOLLOW THE STARS: Fans can keep up on the latest from OCU athletics through several ways.
Check out OCU athletics on several social media platforms by looking up the handle @ocustars. The Stars are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
Fans can sign up to receive the latest OCU athletic headlines via e-mail by going here.
Be sure to catch the OCU Athletics Update video program weekly on ocusports.com, the OCU YouTube Channel or on OCU Athletics' Facebook page. Click here to see the latest edition or see our video channel in the upper right-hand corner of our home page.

ON THE AIR: OCU athletics has partnered with Stretch Internet to provide live and on-demand audio, stats and video of the Stars' games. Listen to the game live by visiting OCU's Stretch portal here. Andrew Himes serves as the play-by-play man. Himes, in his sixth season as the voice of the Stars, has been broadcasting OCU games for nine years starting on color commentary as an OCU student.
Watch Saturday's game here or follow on live stats.

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Players Mentioned

#3 Syrus McDonald: G; 6' 0"; Senior

#11 Xavier Smith: C; 6' 9"; Senior

Players Mentioned

#3 Syrus McDonald
: 6' 0"; Senior
: G

#11 Xavier Smith
: 6' 9"; Senior
: C

Players Mentioned

#3 Syrus McDonald

#11 Xavier Smith

Players Mentioned

#3 Syrus McDonald

#11 Xavier Smith