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ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (4-2) will open the Northern Sun regular season conference schedule this weekend at home at Gangelhoff Center, hosting Wayne State (2-4, 0-1 NSIC) on Friday at 8 p.m. and #11th-ranked Augustana (7-0, 1-0 NSIC) on Saturday at 6 p.m. Full coverage of the Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team can be found in the first edition of weekly game notes.

ONLINE COVERAGE
All Concordia home games and all away NSIC contests will be available to watch at cugoldenbears.com/watch courtesy of the Northern Sun's agreement with Stretch Internet. Concordia's home games are produced by Stream Powered Productions with play-by-play by Dan Flanagan, the voice of the Golden Bears. Joining Flanagan for select contests to provide color commentary is JW Cox, the football play-by-play for the St. Cloud State Huskies.

MINI PREVIEW: Concordia hosts Wayne State on Friday
The Golden Bears and Wildcats will tangle for the 32nd time with WSC holding a slim 16-15 lead in the series that opened in the 1999-2000 season which was Concordia's first at the Division II level and as members of the Northern Sun. The Wildcats swept last season's two contests, winning by four points in Wayne and three in St. Paul and have won six of the last seven meetings in the series. This will be Wayne State's 17th trip to Gangelhoff Center where Concordia holds a 10-6 home record in the series.

The Wildcats are a year ahead of the Golden Bears in their respective head coaching changes as former Upper Iowa coach Brian Dolan is in his second year leading the Wildcats while Concordia is led by first year coach Joey James from South Dakota. The Wildcat program features three projected starting freshmen and two more off the bench in rotation roles with only one senior starter and one senior reserve on a young squad. Concordia is similar, with just two rotational seniors who both are projected starters but have more experience and no true freshmen contributing to the current rotation.

Wayne State's greatest strength is hitting 7.7 three-pointers per game, ranking seventh in the Northern Sun but Concordia's perimeter defense holds opposing marksment to just 28.5% shooting which tops the league and is 25th in the nation.

MINI PREVIEW: Concordia hosts #11 Augustana on Saturday
Saturday's matchup proves to be an intriguing one as the teams enter the weekend with polar opposite strengths. Concordia's nationally strong defense will face its toughest test against the league's top-ranked scoring offense as the Vikings average 88.6 points per game on the year, lead the league in rebound margin (+16.4), dish out the most assists (18.1) and have the second ranked scoring margin (+22.4) in the conference.

Concordia counters that with the top-ranked field goal percentage defense in the land at 33.3%, lead the league in three-point defense at 28.5% and are fifth in the country and third in the league in scoring defense at 58.0 points per game. The highest a team has shot on Concordia this year is North Central's 40.0% in their last outing on Tuesday night, which was a 21-point win and Concordia has held opponents to 64 points or less in every game including on the road at Milwaukee (Div. I) as the Panthers scored 64 points.

Augustana shoots it well, hitting 49.0% from the floor and 39.2% from deep on the year.

In the strength-versus-strength aspect of the matchup, both teams have been rebounding the ball well all year. Augie leads the league with a +16.4 rebound margin while Concordia is fifth in the country and third in the NSIC at +15.7. Concordia's 44.7 rebounds per game lead the conference but Augustana is close behind in fourth with 42.3 per game. The two teams will crash the offensive glass, with Augie second in the league at 14.4 per game and Concordia close behind in fifth with 13.0. The Golden Bears tough defense is backed up by hard-nosed rebounding on the defensive glass as Concordia leads the league and is third in the nation with 31.7 defensive rebounds per night.

Adding intrigue to the matchup are the individuals in the post for each team. Concordia's top four rotational posts: Josh Monroy, Mike Yahnke, Nuni Omot and Shea Mandli are combining to shoot 62.9% (80-127) from the floor and each is shooting at least 61%. As a group, the foursome averages 33.0 points and 23.0 rebounds with plenty of balance on a given night.

On the Augustana side, starting forwards Daniel Jansen and Casey Schilling are statistical monsters, combining for 38.8 points and 16.9 rebounds but without the major bench presence that Concordia holds. Jansen averages 20.7 points and 7.9 rebounds while Schilling is at 18.1 points and 9.0 rebounds. Both players are able to step outside the arc and hit three-pointers as well.