Edinboro Fighting Scots (3-2, 3-1 PSAC West) vs. East Stroudsburg Warriors (6-1, 3-1 PSAC East)
Friday, December 4, 2015 7:30 PM
Koehler Fieldhouse
East Stroudsburg, PA
Live Stats: http://www.sidearmstats.com/esu/mbball/
Radio: WFSE 88.9 (streamed on edinboronow.com)
 
Edinboro Fighting Scots (3-2, 3-1 PSAC West) vs. West Chester Golden Rams (6-0, 4-0 PSAC East)
Saturday, December 5, 2015 4:00 PM
Hollinger Field House
West Chester, PA
Live Stats: http://www.sidearmstats.com/wcupa/mbball/
Radio: WFSE 88.9 (streamed on edinboronow.com)
 
The Game Story
The Edinboro University men's basketball team heads east this weekend for a pair of PSAC road games at East Stroudsburg on Friday, December 4 at 7:30 p.m. and at West Chester on Saturday, December 5 at 4:00 p.m.
 
This weekend will not be an easy one for the Fighting Scots, as the Golden Rams and the Warriors hold down the first and second spots, respectively, in the PSAC East. East Stroudsburg, who made it as far as the PSAC semifinals last season, holds a 6-1 overall record and a 3-1 PSAC record. Their only loss came against Indiana (Pa.) on November 21. They were ranked first in the PSAC East Preseason Poll West Chester stands undefeated with a 6-0 overall record and a 4-0 PSAC record. They will host Slippery Rock on Friday before their matchup with Edinboro on Saturday. They were tied for second with Kutztown in the PSAC East Preseason Poll.
 
Edinboro comes off a 77-67 win at Mercyhurst on Tuesday in their first road game of the season. Reserve guard Sheldon Brogdon came off the bench and dropped in a team-high 19 points for the Fighting Scots, going 5-for-7 from behind the arc. Jaymon Mason matched Brogdon's point total, shooting 6-for-11 from the field and collecting six rebounds. Tommy Scales registered his first double-double with 15 points and a team-high 11 boards.
 
The backcourt scoring of senior guard Henri Wade-Chatman and Mason has produced 39.2 points per game for the Fighting Scots. Wade-Chatman currently has 962 career points, 38 points shy of reaching 1,000 points.
 
On the Radio
Both games will be broadcast on WFSE 88.9. Mike Fenner will handle the play-by-play duties and Tyler Trumbauer will provide the color commentary.
 
All-Time Series and Last Meeting
Edinboro leads East Stroudsburg, 9-8
Dating back to the 1989-90 season, the Fighting Scots hold a one-game lead over the Warriors. ESU has won the last two matchups against Edinboro. They did not play during the 2014-15 season.
12/18/13 – #12 East Stroudsburg 102, Edinboro 69
After an evenly-played first half, East Stroudsburg held a slim six-point advantage at 43-37 at the break. The Warriors came out firing to start the second period, using a 20-8 run to gain an 18-point lead with 13:36 to play. The Fighting Scots surrendered five of their nine second-half turnovers in that span, resulting in eight Warrior points. The Scots could not come within any closer than 18 points for the remainder of the game, as the Warriors built a lead as large as 35 with just 36 seconds remaining. Bryan Theriot led all scorers in the contest with 23 points on 10 of 16 shooting for the night. The senior also grabbed a game-high eight boards. Henri Wade-Chatman added 18 markers, including six of seven shots from the free throw line. Matt Tobin paced East Stroudsburg with 18 points off the bench, followed by Whis Grant with 12 and Jamal Nwaniemeka with 11. The Warriors' bench outscored Edinboro's reserves 59-10 for the night. The Fighting Scots also did not make a three-point basket in the contest on five attempts. East Stroudsburg garnered 25 points off Edinboro's 16 turnovers on the night.
 
West Chester leads Edinboro, 10-9
West Chester has a one-game advantage over the Fighting Scots in a series that dates back to the 1929-30 season. The Scots had won two consecutive games against the Golden Rams before losing to them in the 2013-14 season, 84-77. The two teams did not meet in the 2014-15 season.
12/21/13 – West Chester 84, Edinboro 77
With West Chester holding a 79-69 advantage with 3:01 to play, the Fighting Scots would not go away, as Edinboro posted an 8-1 run in the final three minutes of the game. After a basket by Henri Wade-Chatman and back-to-back three-pointers from Johnathan Logan and Jonny Marsh, Edinboro would close to 80-77. The Rams made all four of their free throw attempts down the stretch to close out a game where they never trailed. Bryan Theriot had 15 points on the afternoon while Logan added 10 markers. Eddie Mitchell led the Rams with a game-high 29 points and five assists. Troy Hockaday added 14 points, while R.J. Griffin and Tom Sharkey each had 11 markers off the bench. The Scots garnered 30 points from West Chester's 21 turnovers, while Edinboro also outscored the Rams by a margin of 40-30 in the paint on the afternoon.
 
Last Time Out
12/1/15 – Edinboro 77, Mercyhurst 67
Mercyhurst came out pushing the tempo to start the second half and closed to a point on three occasions, the last at 38-37 with 15:59 to play. A 7-0 run over the next minute boosted Edinboro's lead to 45-37. Tommy Scales hit a short jumper and free throw, with Sheldon Brogdon and Henri Wade-Chatman adding layups. Mercyhurst would never get closer than six points the rest of the way, and Edinboro eventually built the lead to 21 points at 66-45 with 7:13 to play. The 21-6 scoring run started with three straight Brogdon rainbow 3-pointers. Scales then got into the act, as the 6'8" senior scored eight of Edinboro's next ten points, and Michael Beck's layup off a Brogdon feed gave Edinboro the 21-point advantage. The lead never fell under double digits the rest of the way, with Mercyhurst outscoring Edinboro, 7-2, over the final seventy seconds to make the final margin ten points. Four players combined for 67 of Edinboro's 77 points as the Fighting Scots shot a season-high 56.9 percent from the floor (29-of-51) and made 13-of-15 free throws. Brogdon bounced off the bench to key the victory as he buried five 3-pointers in seven attempts. The sophomore guard ended the night with 19 points in 34 minutes, both season highs. Mason also scored 19 points, going 6-for-7 at the free throw line, with six rebounds. Scales scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half, and finished with his first double-double with 11 rebounds. Wade-Chatman turned in a strong all-around game with 14 points, six rebounds and five assists.
 
12/1/15 – East Stroudsburg 91, Bloomsburg 74
ESU led by as many as 17 points (42-25) in the first half and held off a 12-0 Bloomsburg run spanning halftime as the Huskies cut the deficit to 42-37 with 18:20 remaining. The Warriors responded with the next seven points, including six straight from Steve Harris. They pushed a 49-41 lead to 59-41 with a 10-0 stretch, getting two three-pointers from Najee Walls and a three from Will Brown, then scored five more on a Moore three-point play and a steal and dunk to make it 64-42 at the 11:30 mark. Moore had 18 points and 10 rebounds while Brown scored 18 points and Walls had a season-high 15 points with five assists for the Warriors. Harris added 12 points and 14 rebounds.
 
12/1/15 – West Chester 83, Shippensburg 68
In a game where both teams shot 43.1 percent from the field, West Chester knocked down 48 percent from behind the 3-point arc (12-for-25) en route to the win. The Golden Rams scored 22 points off 15 Raiders turnovers in the game. Five players in all scored in double figures for West Chester Tuesday evening. Malik Jackson scored 16 points and Matt Penecale posted eight assists. Spreading the wealth offensively were Avery Brown with 14, and both Matt Wiseley and Jackson Hyland with 12. Mike Wilson had 10.
 
The Head Coaches
Edinboro: Pat Cleary (27-31, 3^rd Year)
Pat Cleary sat at the right side of Edinboro head men's basketball coach Greg Walcavich for 14 years. On March 26, 2013, Cleary moved over a seat as he was officially introduced as Edinboro's tenth head coach after Walcavich announced his retirement. Cleary's first season ended with a 10-16 record. Edinboro lost three games to nationally-ranked teams and suffered a number of close losses, including two overtime losses and two defeats at the buzzer. Season number two saw the Fighting Scots make the PSAC playoffs as the number five seed after being picked to finish eighth in the PSAC coaches' poll. Edinboro ended the year with a 14-13 record, falling at Slippery Rock, 64-60, in the first round of the PSAC Playoffs. Among the victories was a 79-77 overtime upset of 16th-ranked Indiana (Pa.). The Crimson Hawks would go on to reach the NCAA Division II national championship game.
 
East Stroudsburg: Jeff Wilson (233-139, 13^th year)
Jeff Wilson, an assistant coach on ESU's 1990 PSAC championship team, has returned the Warriors to a position of prominence since he was named head coach in 2002-03, culminating with the top season in school history in 2014. Wilson was named the NCAA Division II Coach of the Year by the Basketball Times and CollegeInsider.com and the NABC DII Atlantic Region Coach of the Year for the second time in five years, also earning recognition in 2010. ESU went 30-2 - winning the PSAC title for the second time in three years - and hosted the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional. The Warriors advanced to the regional final and earned a spot in the Sweet 16 to cap a record-setting season. In the last six years (2009-10 through 2014-15), the Warriors have played in the NCAA Tournament four times (2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014) and made six straight trips to the PSAC Final Four, compiling a record of 131-49 that stands third-best in the Atlantic Region.
 
West Chester: Damien Blair (128-70, 8^th year)
Head coach Damien Blair enters his eighth season at West Chester University continuing to build upon a program that has reached the conference finals in two of the past four seasons and has grown into a perennial conference power. The school's second all-time leading scorer has authored an overall record of 127-70 (.645) in his seven years on West Chester's bench with five postseason tournament appearances, three conference semifinal appearances (2012, 2013, 2014) and a pair of PSAC Championship game appearances (2012, 2014). A year ago, the Golden Rams finished in second place in the highly competitive PSAC Eastern Division and reached the postseason tournament.
 
The Fighting Scots 
Players to Watch
Henri Wade-Chatman (G, Sr.) was named to the first team All-PSAC West after finishing second in the PSAC with 18.9 points per game and third in total points with 511. He is currently 29^th all-time in career points with 962 and 12^th in 3-pointers with 116. Nicknamed "Booka," Wade-Chatman is the team's second-leading scorer with 18.4 points per game and leads in assists with 16 and in steals with 12. He had a season-high 27 points against Mansfield, connecting on 7 of 12 3-pointers.
 
Tommy Scales (C, Sr.), a former transfer from Fairmont State, leads the team with 8.8 rebounds per game and averages 14.8 points per game. He posted his first double-double of the season against Mercyhurst, scoring 15 boards and grabbing 11 boards. Last season, he finished third on the team in scoring (7.7 ppg) and was second on the team in rebounding (5.9 rpg). He also shot 55.8 percent from the floor and blocked 23 shots.
 
Jaymon Mason (G, R-So.) was named the 2015 PSAC Freshman of the Year, the first Fighting Scot to receive this honor since Dan Grabill in 2002. Mason is the Scots leading scorer with 20.8 points per game, including notching a career-high 39 points against Kutztown earlier this year. He posted 20 points against Lake Erie and 19 at Mercyhurst. Mason ranked second on the team and 13^th in the PSAC in scoring at 14.5 points per game. In addition, he was third in the conference and 32^nd in NCAA Division II in free throw percentage at 86.8 percent. He was 118-of-144 from the charity stripe, and made 24 consecutive free throws.
           
Scouting East Stroudsburg
The Warriors opened the season with three straight wins, including a PSAC win over Shippensburg, before falling to Indiana (Pa.), last year's NCAA Division II runners up, 82-73. The Warriors did not miss a beat, defeating their next three opponents, Seton Hill, PSU-Lehigh Valley, and Bloomsburg, to stand at 6-1. All but one of their victories have been decided by less than 10 points. East Stroudsburg averages 90.1 points per game and have held opponents to 71.0 points per game. They average 41.1 rebounds per game while keeping the opposition at 34.3 boards per game. Redshirt senior guard Will Brown tops the Warriors in scoring with 15.7 points per game while junior forward Steve Harris leads ESU with 10.0 rebounds per game. Junior forward and two-time All-PSAC Second Team East selection Rasheed Moore is second on the Warriors with 14.7 points per game and 7.7 boards per game.
  
Scouting West Chester
West Chester enters this weekend with hopes of maintaining a perfect season. The 6-0 Golden Rams have reeled off four PSAC victories against Lock Haven, Pitt-Johnstown, Indiana (Pa.), and Shippensburg. After a one-point victory against Division III Gwynedd Mercy to begin the season, four of the Golden Rams' next five wins were decided by double digits. Their largest margin of victory was 27 against Lock Haven, downing the Bald Eagles in that contest, 85-58.They begin a six-game home stand on Friday against Slippery Rock before hosting the Fighting Scots on Saturday. WCU has totaled 87.2 points per game and have allowed just 75.4 points per game to opponents. They also have outrebounded their opponents, with 39.8 boards per game to the opposition's 31.6 rpg. Freshman guard Malik Jackson is the Golden Rams leading scorer with 18.0 points per game. Senior forward Matt Wiseley is the second leading scorer with 14.4 points per game and leads the squad with 10.8 rebounds per game. Senior guard Mike Wilson has come off the bench to average 13.4 points per game.