Flames host St. Francis in final warm-up

(11/10/03)

The Flames will have a final chance to tune-up for the regular season by hosting St. Francis at the UIC Pavilion Tuesday night as part of women’s-men’s basketball doubleheader.

UIC handily defeated the Illinois All-Stars in last week’s exhibition opener, but will be looking to cut down its turnovers. UIC coach Jimmy Collins also hopes that forward Elliott Poole will see some game action.

The Fighting Saints, a NAIA Division I school in Joliet, enter Tuesday’s game with a 1-1 record, defeating East-West University 91-80 last Wednesday before being blown out by Point Loma Nazarene (Calif.) 86-52 Saturday night.

St. Francis’ roster has mostly local products, including forward Bob St. Leger of Sandburg, who played basketball and volleyball in high school, and forward Brandon Krug of Dwight. St. Leger averaged 14.1 points per game last year, and Krug averaged 8.2 points. Krug is an interesting story, because he originally signed with New Hampshire after getting looks from the Flames.

Also, St. Francis’ coach is Pat Sullivan, whose son Pat served as a manager and played a handful of games for the Flames in 1995-96 for Bob Hallberg’s Flames.

MORE PROPS: Sun-Times writer Herb Gould ranked the Flames No. 25 in the nation in its Sunday edition, touting Cedrick Banks and Martell Bailey and questioning the team’s size in the post.

Last Friday’s USA Today stated that UIC was a “top team” in the Horizon League, along with Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

CBSSportsLine.com’s Horizon League preview picked the Flames to win the conference and said that UIC’s stock was rising.