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Show Tough road trip faces College quintet Grand Canyon, WNM. Adams State on agenda Pickin up the piocos starts this wook for Southern Utah State's basketball team. The Thuntlerbirds, virtually eliminated from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tithe picture, face an awesome array of opponents beginning Friday and ending Monday. Friday the T-Birds are in Phoenix to test Grand Canyon Can-yon College. Saturday it's on to Silver City to tangle with Western New Mexico. Adams State, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference leader, is Monday's foe. That game will be in Alamosa, Colo. Grand Canyon boasts a 14-4 record and has been tabbed as one of the areas best college division teams. However, two of the four Antelope An-telope losses have been to SUSC. The T-Birds nipped Grand Canyon 88-81 at Cedar City for the championship of a holiday tournament, and last week the T-Birds whipped the Antelopes at Cedar City 108-101. 108-101. "Grand Canyon is an excellently excel-lently balanced team, and they'll really be after us," Adams Ad-ams warns. Both the Antelopes and T-Birds are big, physical teams. Both sport outstanding guards, Skip Mead for SUSC and Joe Burnside for Grand Canyon. If there is a "breather" team among the three opponents, it would have to be Western New Mexico. The Mustangs, however, pushed SUSC earlier this year at Cedar City before losing, 108-96. In forward Jay Olive and center Willis Bellamy, Bel-lamy, WNM has two excellent ball players. Adams State is roaring toward to-ward the RMAC championship. The Indians are unbeaten through eight conference contests. con-tests. Adams State will probably prob-ably be the tallest team the T-Birds will face this season. Jim Gilbert, 7-1 center, and Ed Kemp, a 6-7 forward, lead the Indians in both scoring and rebounding. The T-Birds count most on the scoring of Skip Mead. A 'bad" night 14 points against Regis dropped Mead's average to 29.0 points. He is followed in scoring by rapidly rapid-ly improving Eddie Owens with a 15.2 average. Owens is the club's leading rcbounder. He is sweeping off 14.1 each game. Giving Owens plenty of help on the boards is Gil Mullen with his 12.5 rebound average. Mullen is also al-so scoring 12.8 points per game. |