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ST. JOSEPH, Mo. - The Missouri Western men's basketball team is set to open up the 2012-2013 season this week with three home games. MWSU will open up the season on Tuesday, November 13 against NAIA opponent Sterling College in the fieldhouse. Tip time is set for 7:00 pm. The Griffons will then host the 21st annual Hillyard Tipoff Classic this weekend in St. Joseph, Mo. The Griffons will take on William Jewell College on Friday, November 16 and Rockhurst University on Saturday, November 17th. Both game are scheduled to tip at approximatley 7:30 pm.

Griffon Notes
• This marks the 43rd season of Griffons men's basketball
• Head Coach Tom Smith enters his 25th season overall at Missouri Western and 38th season overall as a coach at MWSU...Smith has won 608 career games with 438 coming at Missouri Western.
• Record in Season Openers: Since basketball started in 1969-1970 the Missouri Western men's basketball team has been outstanding in season openers going 33-10. The Griffons have won 17 of the last 18 season openers which included a 69-55 victory last season
against Fontbonne University on November 12 in the fieldhouse. The victory was Tom Smith's 600 career victory.
• The Griffons are 24-3 in season openers which are played at home and 5-7 when they play games that are on the road. Missouri Western is 4-0 in season openers which are at a neutral site.
• MWSU went 9-4 in season openers under its first head coach Gary Filbert and 8-1 at home.
• Under Skip Shear the Griffons when 4-2 in season openers and were 3-0 at home and 1-2 on the road.
• Under Tom Smith the Griffons have compiled a remarkable 20-4 record in season openers. Coach Smith is 13-2 in home season openers, 3-2 on the road and 4-0 at a neutral site.
• Western has a 35-5 record in the Classic and are 25-3 while playing in the MWSU Fieldhouse...MWSU defeated William Jewell 65-64 and Rockhurst 68-58.
• The Griffons were picked to finish 11th in the MIAA coaches preseason poll and 12th in the MIAA media preseason poll.

GRIFFONS IN THE HILLYARD TIP-OFF CLASSIC
The Griffons will be hosting the Hillyard Classic for the 21st season. MWSU has a 35-5 record in the classic and are 25-3 while playing in the MWSU Fieldhouse. During the first seven years of the Hillyard Classic's existence, MWSU Fieldhouse served as the site where the Griffons posted a 14-0 record. The Griffons moved the Hillyard Classic to the Civic Arena from 2000-2005 and posted a 10-2 record there. The Classic moved back to campus in 2005 with the Griffons winning five out of seven contests moving their all-time record in the Hillyard to 33-5. Western went 1-1 in the tournament last year, beating Avila and falling to Michigan Tech.

Series vs. Each Team:
vs. Sterling College: First Meeting
vs. William Jewell: The Griffons are 13-8 overall against the Cardinals of William Jewell. They are 9-5 at home and 3-3 on the road. MWSU leads the series 1-0 on a neutral floor. The last time that the Griffons played William Jewell they beat the Cardinals 65-64 on November 18, 2011 in St. Joseph, Mo. MWSU has won the last seven meeting with the Cardinals.
vs. Rockhurst: The Griffons are tied with Rockhurst at 27-27. The Griffons are 17-10 at home and trail the series 10-16 on the road. The Griffons are 0-1 on a neutral floor. The Hawks have won the two of the last trhee. Last season MWSU won 68-58 on November 20 in the Hillyard Classic. In 2008 MWSU lost 73-72 in the Hillyard Classic and 100-89 at Rockhurst a week later.

THE COACHES
Missouri Western Head Basketball Coach Tom Smith
• Tom Smith begins his 25th season at Missouri Western and his 38th season overall
• Smith has compiled a 608-446 record, a .579 winning percentage that ranks him among the 20 top active coaches at the Division II level.
• Smith was inducted into the Missouri Western State University Athletics Hall of Fame in September of 2006 and is also a member of the Missouri Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame
• Smith has coached 49 All-MIAA selections in his 24 seasons at Missouri Western, six All-Region/District picks and three NCAA All-Americas.
• He became the 11th coach in NCAA Division II to win 600 games
• Smith is 438-262 at Missouri Western.

Sterling College Head Coach Dean Jaderston
• Dean Jaderston begins his 7th season at Sterling. During his tenure at Sterling the Warriors have finished as conference champions twice, and no lower than 5th in the final season standings.
• Coach Jaderston attended Crown College in St. Bonifacius, MN where he earned a double major in History/Secondary Education and Bible and Theology. He competed in both tennis and basketball
• In 2001, he made the move to the collegiate ranks when he was hired by Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL. After some major rebuilding, the Trojans achieved their first winning season in 9 years in 2006, Coach Jaderston's last year at TIU before coming to Sterling College.

William Jewell Head Coach Larry Holley
• Larry Holley will begin his 34th year as the head men's basketball coach at William Jewell College (1979-80 was his first) where the basketball court is named in his honor.
• He has received 14 Coach of the Year Awards including the prestigious Sears/NABC NAIA National Coach of the Year Award in 1996 (he was the first NAIA coach to receive this award from the NABC).
• He has also been selected to five Halls of Fames: the Greater Kansas City Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the William Jewell College Athletic Hall of Fame, the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) Hall of Fame and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. In 2011 he was honored by the Kansas City Sports Commission with the Earl Smith Award inducting Coach Holley into the Greater Kansas City Amateur Sports Hall of Champions.  In May of 2003 he was a court coach at the USA Basketball Pan American Trials in Colorado Springs, CO.
• Since his return to his alma mater in the fall of 1979 he has guided eleven Jewell squads to HAAC Regular Season Conference Titles, and fourteen to the NAIA National Tournament with four of them reaching the Final Four (1993, 1995, 1996, 1997) and three reaching the Elite Eight (1988, 1992, 2004). Holley's teams have had two winning streaks that will be hard to top: a 43-game home court winning streak (began with an 89-66 win over Missouri Valley – 1/21/84 - through a 73-65 win over Cameron, OK – 1/7/87) and a 45-game Heart of America Athletic Conference winning streak that included 21 road wins in a row(began with a 77-57 win over Missouri Valley – 1/28/85 -  through a 71-61 win over Tarkio – 2/4/88). Coach Holley has guided the Cardinals to twenty-four 20-win seasons (fourteen of his teams have had 25 or more wins and four have won 30 or more games).  His 831 career wins ranks him:, #1 all-time among Missouri 4-year college coaches, #3 among all active NCAA Division II coaches, #10 all-time among NCAA coaches at all levels (Divisions I, II, III), #13 all-time among NCAA and NAIA coaches at all levels (nearly 1300 schools).

Rockhurst Head Coach Bill O'Connor
• Bill O'Connor is in his 18th season as the head coach of the Rockhurst Hawks. He has been coaching basketball on the high school, junior college and college level for the past 38 years.
• O'Connor is the winningest coach in the history of Rockhurst basketball with 247 victories. Eight of his teams have qualified for postseason play, while 11 of his teams at Rockhurst have won 15 or more games in a season.
• A graduate of Rockhurst High School, O'Connor received a B.S. in history from St. Benedict's
College (now Benedictine College) in 1972. He earned his master's in education from Emporia State University.
• Before being named the head coach at Rockhurst in 1994, O'Connor was the head coach at
Colby (Kan.) Community College. He was an assistant coach at Rockhurst from 1982-86 and coached at Texas-Pan American.


Up Next
The Griffons will play their first two games away from the fieldhouse on Thanksgiving Weekend when they participate in the RU Harvesters Classic in Kansas City, Mo. The Griffons will take on the Park University Pirates on Friday, November 23 at 2:00 pm and the play host Rockhurst University on Saturday, November 24. Game time is set for 4:00 pm from Masin-Halpin Gym in Kansas City, Mo.