The Ferris State men’s bas­ket­ball team upset the Division II defend­ing National Champion Findlay Oilers 86–77 on Saturday.

Bulldog junior cen­ter Justin Keenan scored a career-high 35 points on 13 of 19 shoot­ing from the field. Keenan went 9 of 12 from the free-throw line as well. Keenan attrib­uted his career-high to his team­mates and the game plan.

“My team­mates do a great job of mov­ing and get­ting the ball inside when I’m open,” said Keenan.

Bulldog head coach Bill Sall said the defense played much bet­ter defense than on Thursday when the team allowed 96 points against Hillsdale. Sall also said the team played with more emo­tion and pas­sion than in pre­vi­ous games.

“I’m proud of how we played,” said Sall, “If we play like that the rest of the way, we have a chance to be play­ing for a long time.”

Junior guard/forward Austin Randel added 16 points and six rebounds for Ferris as the team had four play­ers in dou­ble fig­ures. The Bulldogs shot 60 per­cent from the floor and made eight of 16 three-point shot attempts.

The Oilers were ranked 19th in the lat­est National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division II Coaches Poll. After a 13-game win­ning streak, Findlay lost to Grand Valley State and Ferris in back-to-back games.

The Bulldogs are 13–8 over­all this sea­son and 11–5 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (GLIAC). Ferris is third in the GLIAC stand­ings with six games left in the reg­u­lar season.

The Bulldogs travel to the Upper Peninsula to bat­tle Michigan Tech on Feb. 11 and Northern Michigan on Feb. 13. Ferris defeated both teams at home ear­lier this season.

FSU vs Northern Michigan (2 of 2)

FSU vs Northern Michigan (1 of 2)

Ferris senior left wing Blair Riley has been nom­i­nated for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, an honor given to the nation’s top col­lege hockey player.

Riley is tied for third in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) with 30 points. His team-leading 17 goals rank him in a second-place tie in the con­fer­ence and he is in a first-place tie with two short­handed goals.

There are 70 play­ers on the list of can­di­dates in the first phase, which will con­tinue until March 7. Only the top 10 final­ists will remain on the bal­lot and move for­ward. Fans will have the oppor­tu­nity to vote on the top 10 final­ists begin­ning on March 19 dur­ing phase two of the process.

On April 1, the Hobey Baker Hat Trick Finalists will be announced and the award-winner will be announced on April 9.

In each phase of the selec­tion process, the fan votes count for one per­cent of the total bal­lot. The remain­der of the vote comes from the coaches of the 58 NCAA Division I hockey teams. Coaches vote for whom they believe are the top three play­ers in their league and the top three play­ers in the nation.

Criteria for the can­di­dates include superla­tive char­ac­ter, out­stand­ing skills in all facets of the game, scholas­tic achieve­ment and sportsmanship.

Fans can view the list of can­di­dates and cast their vote at hobey​baker​.com/​v​o​t​ing.

In the midst of the com­men­tary sur­round­ing President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, his style of gov­ern­ing has been ana­lyzed almost as much as his pol­icy decisions.

Jacob Weisberg, a colum­nist for Slate​.com, recently wrote an arti­cle argu­ing that Obama’s calm and ana­lyt­i­cal per­sona is a pri­mary rea­son for the decline in pub­lic sup­port for him and his party. I find this point both inter­est­ing and depressing.

“The way Obama con­nects to peo­ple is the oppo­site of a Clinton, a Bush, or a Ronald Reagan. Those pres­i­dents were all relaters. They bonded with peo­ple based on com­mon feel­ings, expe­ri­ences, and interests…His [Obama’s] rela­tion­ship with the world is pri­mar­ily ratio­nal and ana­lyt­i­cal rather than intu­itive or emo­tional,” said Weisberg. (more…)

This month-long event kicked off on Jan. 28 with the Festival of the Arts Opening Reception. The fes­ti­val fea­tures 77 vary­ing events in 32 days.

Bruce Dilg, chair­man of the Festival of the Arts exec­u­tive com­mit­tee and FSU pro­fes­sor of archi­tec­ture, said the event was ini­tially started 50 years ago to cel­e­brate the 75th anniver­sary of Ferris State University. The event con­tin­ued until the early ‘90s. (more…)

The Bulldogs are 12–7 over­all this sea­son and 10–4 in Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) play. Following losses by Lake Superior State and Saginaw Valley State, Ferris moved into sec­ond in the GLIAC North Division stand­ings and third in the over­all con­fer­ence stand­ings. Bulldog junior cen­ter Justin Keenan said the team has gained con­fi­dence, but knows the team needs to fin­ish the sea­son strong. (more…)

Dr. James Hoerter is inter­ested in find­ing out what causes the early stages of melanoma by study­ing zebrafish.

Hoerter and his Biology 103 lab recently started using zebrafish as a model to inves­ti­gate the early stages that lead to melanoma.

Hoerter, a pro­fes­sor in the Biological Sciences Department, spent a semes­ter in Ireland while on a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship trip. While on the trip, he worked with the radi­a­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence group on the cel­lu­lar and sub­cel­lu­lar responses to radi­a­tion. After encoun­ter­ing sev­eral labs in Ireland using fish for research, he was impressed with how zebrafish were being stud­ied to indi­cate the main cause of melanoma. (more…)