Wednesday: The Showdown
 
Wednesday night's 7 p.m. game at the East Kentucky Expo Center is the one people have been pointing to since the schedule was released, as the University of Pikeville hosts Mountain State University in a rematch of last March's national championship game.
 
The game received even more of a shine when the NAIA released the Div. I preseason poll which found UPIKE ranked No. 1 and Mountain State No. 2.
 
Tonight's is the first of two meetings this season between the teams. Pikeville returns the favor by visiting Beckley, W.Va., to play the Cougars on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
 
A look back
 
Trevor Setty scored 32 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the arc and pulled down 17 rebounds en route to the MVP trophy and Quincy Hankins-Cole had 21 and 16 as Pikeville beat Mountain State 83-76 in overtime last March 22 in Kansas City.
 
Doug Wiggins sank two free throws to give the Cougars a 70-68 lead to begin the overtime period, but the Bears got baskets by Hankins-Cole, Justin Hicks and Hankins Cole again, and when Quintel Maxwell sank a free throw with 1:51 remaining, the Bears were in front 75-70.
 
Mountain State pulled within two (75-73) on a basket by Winston Robinson with 54 seconds left, but a three-point play by Hicks and another Maxwell free throw had the edge back to six with 30 ticks left.
 
Hicks had 21 in his final game as a Bear. Vance Cooksey, a recent fourth-round draft pick in the NBA D-League, had five points, four rebounds and eight assists in the win.
 
Tay Spann paced MSU with 16. Wiggins flipped in 13 and David Nyarsuk had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

Saturday: Georgetown College
 
Mid-South Conference play begins early this season and it gets no bigger for the Bears than Saturday when they begin things with a battle against No. 8 Georgetown College.
 
The Tigers, in their first season under Head Coach Chris Briggs, took a 5-0 record to Kansas City to play Park last night. The Pirates, who were the 26^th-rated team in the preseason poll, were 3-3 on the season.
 
The action begins with the first home game for the women's basketball team at 2 p.m. The men will follow with a 4 p.m. opening tip.
 
Bears and the MSC
 
At this early stage of the season, several Bears are among the leaders in the Mid-South Conference. Here's a look at how they stack up in the league:

♦ Senior guard Chris McHenry leads the Mid-South Conference at this early stage in the season with an average of 3.2 steals per game and is second in assists per game at 5.4

♦ A pair of Bears are in the Top 5 in field goal shooting. Senior forward Andrew Young is atop the league, having hit on 73.0 percent of his shots through five games. Senior Shane Burrell is third at 66.7 percent thus far

 ♦ With six players averaging more than eight points per game, no Bear is in the Top 10 in scoring. Burrell and junior Trevor Setty are among three players tied for 12^th. They're averaging 14.2 per outing
 
♦ Similarly, with four Bears averaging nearly five rebounds per game only two are in the Top 20. Junior Chris Watson paces UPike with 6.4 per game, which has him 16^th in the league. Burrell follows closely. His 6.2 per contest has him tied for 17^th in the league to this point in the season