The head coach of the Illinois-Springfield, Kevin Gamble, just turned 39 Nov. 13. Even though he’s young, he is not inexperienced in the game of basketball.

Gamble played two years of college basketball at Iowa. After he graduated, Gamble was drafted by the Portland Trailblazers in 1988.

He played one season with Portland and then was traded to the Boston Celtics in his second year in the NBA. Gamble spent six years with the Celtics and then played two years with the Miami Heat and one year with the Sacramento Kings.

In Gamble’s 649 games played in the NBA, he averaged 9.5 points per game.

Now Gamble has moved onto coaching the Prairie Stars of Illinois-Springfield, Gamble’s hometown.

Eastern’s Head Coach Rick Samuels got some information on the style of the Prairie Stars’ play. He believes Gamble will by relying on the offense he ran at Iowa which is a variation of the flex.

“They’ll play an up tempo game, and they’ll pressure the ball,” Samuels said.

The Prairie Stars are 2-2 in four exhibition games so far, and Johnny Tate has stood out averaging 23 points per game.

Tate is listed as a guard but Samuels expects him to play down low.

Even though Illinois-Springfield is in the NAIA as opposed to the NCAA, Samuels expects a challenging game.

It may take a little more than a small team being pumped to win this game. Prairie State’s average height is just over six-foot-three.

“They don’t have great size,” Samuels said.

The Panthers’ average height is just over an inch more than the Prairie Stars.

This will be the Panthers last exhibition game before they head to DePaul next Tuesday. Even though they are playing a tough DePaul team, they are not looking past their last exhibition game or taking the Prairie Stars lightly.

Samuels said he will use this last exhibition game to get everyone playing time to see what kind of progress they have made up to this point.

The game is scheduled for 7:35 tonight, and because of Thanksgiving break Samuels is concerned about what the attendance will be like.