After both having extra time off, the St. Joseph Christian Lions and the Stanberry Bulldogs will shake off the cobwebs and take on one another at 7:30 p.m. on January 16th. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (St. Joseph Christian has seven straight wins, Stanberry has five straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
St. Joseph Christian put the finishing touches on their eighth blowout victory of the season last Friday. They blew past Albany 79-58. Given St. Joseph Christian's advantage in MaxPreps' Missouri basketball rankings (they are ranked 110th, while Albany is ranked 432nd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Meanwhile, Stanberry opened the new year with a less-than-successful 63-51 loss to Worth County.
St. Joseph Christian's win was their fourth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 12-1. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive dominance across that stretch, as they averaged 78.0 points per game. As for Stanberry, their loss dropped their record down to 3-8.
St. Joseph Christian beat Stanberry 75-68 in their previous matchup back in January of 2023. Does St. Joseph Christian have another victory up their sleeve, or will Stanberry turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.
