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One of your posters came over to the Missouri State board and offered up some thoughts on the game so I figured I would return the favor here. In all my time following Missouri State athletics, this team is the biggest mystery of all of them. Generally, you know who is going to be pretty good, who was pretty good as a recruit, what style you will play on offense/defense and have a baseline for what things will be like when games start and whether the season is a rebuilding year, competitive year, or something in-between. This team though, is quite unique due to a number of factors: 1. There are five transfers on this team currently sitting out and not eligible for this game. The Bears have put in waivers for four of them already and are awaiting word (one of the transfers is a walk-on transfer from DII). Missouri State is holding out hope to hear something on the transfers this weekend, but especially on Jared Ridder. Ridder is a freshman transfer from Xavier who sat out last year but since he was enrolled with Xavier for the start of the fall semester last year, he does not satisfy the two semester residency rule. He never practiced with Xavier and Springfield is his hometown so they're hopeful. He would change things quite a bit as a former Missouri Gatorade POY and a 4-star recruit. He's a 6-9 F who can really shoot it. 2. Three other players new to the team have hardly been seen before. One, Josh Webster, is a grad transfer from Texas Tech and was the #1 Juco PG coming out, but barely played with Texas Tech and is learning a new system here. The other two are 6-10 Polish twins who are here as freshmen. As you can imagine, there is limited film on both of them, but they did both play for the U18 Polish national team. Szymon Wojcik is the one who will probably start and he's a shooter. He had 16 against Evangel in the fans first real view of him with the program. His brother, Jan, is a slasher type who has more to learn to make a big impact. 3. The remaining players are a 6-11 RS freshman, Darian Scott, who is merely a rim runner. 6-5 Keandre Cook is a Juco wing transfer who will be relied on to be a slasher. Kabir Muhammad is a power player used as an undersized forward. 6-5, 230 is a Juco transfer and was highly rated. 4. Coach Ford has said the way he wants to play here (3's, FT's, layups only) is a different philosophy than he used last year at Tennessee State. He says it's because he had limited access to talent at that school and had to play with what he had, but we will see. Missouri State has 15 players on their roster, but only 10 available for the game, with one being a walk-on from last year, Ross Owens. Look for them to start the following players: PG- Josh Webster, 6-3, transfer from Texas Tech SG- Jared Dixon, 6-4, probably leading returning player. SF- Keandre Cook, 6-5, Juco transfer PF- Szymon Wojcik, 6-10, Polish freshman C- Obediah Church, 6-7, returning player is a high flyer. Because of the home court advantage, I'll say the Bears win it in a 5-point game, but that's mainly just hope because this is one where both teams have a lot of unknowns going into the game. Good luck this season.

With those eyes, they may have to start calling him her Elly.

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