ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia Golden Bears men's basketball team (1-7, 0-2 NSIC) his the road for the first time in conference play this weekend as they travel to Upper Iowa (6-5, 0-3 NSIC) and Winona State (4-3, 1-2 NSIC) for a pair of NSIC contests.

LAST TIME OUT
Last weekend, The Golden Bears were held below 60 points in each of their first two conference games as they fell to Augustana and Wayne State at Gangelhoff Center over the weekend

Concordia held a 14 point lead with 12:22 to play over the Vikings on Friday night before Augie closed out the game on a 40-7 run to hand CSP the loss. The Golden Bears limited their opponents to 44.8% from the floor over the two games, but managed to hit just 38.2% themselves.

Bryndan Matthews scored in double figures in both games as he averaged 13.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.5 steals per game on the weekend. Avan Ward added 10.5 points per game as he connected on 5-10 from beyond the arc in the two contests. Cody Carlson scored a career-best 13 points with three three-pointers made in Friday's loss as he tallied 9.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks overall.

UIU SERIES HISTORY
Heading into Friday's matchup, the Golden Bears hold a record of 14-13 against the Peacocks. CSP has found most of their success against UIU in Fayette as they have won nine of 13 meetings there, including five of the last seven. Concordia's best stretch in the series came from 2004-12 with a record of 11-3 during that span. Since December 2014, Upper Iowa has gone 5-1 in the series.

LAST MEETING VS UIU
In a meeting in Fayette back on Feb. 11, Concordia was unable to overcome an early 13-0 run as they fell 75-61 to Upper Iowa.

Upper Iowa held an edge in the shooting department as they knocked down 47.2% (25-53) from the floor compared to 42.1% (24-57) for the Golden Bears. UIU also held an 8-3 edge in threes made as well as a 17-10 edge in free throws made on the night.
 
Bryndan Matthews made it back-to-back double-doubles with 18 points and 11 rebounds to go along with three steals as he hit eight of his 14 shots.
 
Diallo Powell joined Matthews in double figures in scoring with 11 points as he also chipped in four boards off the bench. Sam Siganos and Ted Brown each had nine points as Siganos added six assists and Brown added six rebounds.
 
Jimmy Roth was a major difference-maker for the Peacocks as he led all scorers with 25 points as he hit an efficient 7-9 from the floor and 9-11 from the charity stripe in the win. He also added four rebounds, two blocks, two assists and a steal in a full line. Josh Weeber also broke double digits with 13 points while knocking down three from beyond the arc.

ABOUT THE PEACOCKS
The Peacocks dropped a pair of games on the road last week in their first full conference weekend of the year, dropping their record to 6-5. UIU fell 93-86 at the hands of Southwest Minnesota State despite a late comeback in Marshall. Upper Iowa then had a hard time slowing down Sioux Falls on Saturday as they allowed 60 second-half points in a 90-78 defeat in Sioux Falls, S.D.

There has not been a defense this season that has found a way to stop senior Carson Parker. The New Hartford, Iowa native added two more 20-point games to his rèsumè this past weekend, as he scored 20 against SMSU and 27 against USF. The point guard now has four 20-point games this season, and 10 for his career. Parker is averaging 17.7 points per game, which ranks 10th in the NSIC, and has scored in double figures all but once this season.

Parker leads the way is most statistical categories this season for the Peacocks, including points per game (17.7), field goals made (66), total assists (67), and assists per game (6.1). The team has three players averaging double figures, including Dennis Austin III (13.2 PPG), and freshman Joe Smoldt (11.8 PPG). Smoldt has scored in double figures in eight straight games, and leads the team with 30 three-point field goals made. Munachiso Okonkwo is averaging a team-best 7.5 rebounds per game, and has notched four double-doubles this season. His 83 rebounds are an NSIC-best, and his 19 blocks rank second in the league.

WSU SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears head into Saturday's trip to Winona State with a record of 6-43 against the Warriors. Amazingly, WSU won the first 31 meetings from 1986-2008 before CSP registered their first win in the series. Despite the overall record, Concordia has been successful against the Warriors in the past few years with three wins in the past five and four in the past nine meetings. In 26 trips to Winona, CSP is 4-22.

LAST MEETING VS WSU
Three-point shooting proved to be the difference in the game as WSU knocked down an impressive 16-31 (51.6%) from beyond the arc while the Golden Bears managed just four threes on 13 attempts (30.8%) on the night. Overall, both teams finished with similar marks from the field as Winona State hit 50.9% (27-53) compared to 48.9% (22-45) for Concordia.
 
Despite the loss, CSP put forth a dominant display down low as they held a huge 34-14 edge in points in the paint as well as a 33-23 edge on the glass (10-5 on the offensive boards), leading to a 10-4 edge in second chance points.
 
Highlighting the night for the Golden Bears was the duo of Ted Brown and Bryndan Matthews as Brown scored a team-high 19 points while Matthews put up a double-double with 17 points and 10 boards. Brown was nearly perfect from the floor as he hit 8-9 from the floor while Matthews went to the line 11 times, hitting seven, to go along with three steals on the night.
 
Brandon McRoy also gave the team a boost as he hit 7-11 from the free throw line to score 11 points in 19 minutes of action. He also added four rebounds, a pair of assists and a steal.
 
Sam Siganos joined the three in double figures has he scored 10 first half points to go along with four boards and four assists in the loss.

ABOUT THE WARRIORS
The Warriors dropped a pair of road NSIC contests to open the month of December, falling to 4-3 overall. WSU led at halftime of both contests only to see Sioux Falls and SMSU storm back for wins. USF outscored Winona in the second half, 49-31, while SMSU edged the Warriors on their home court.

The Warriors enter the weekend ranked second in the NSIC in three-point shooting (42.3%). Forward Tommy Gathje is shooting a league-best 53.8% from beyond the arc. WSU has knocked down at least nine three-pointers in five straight games, and six of seven overall this year.

Winona's lone senior, Corey Jeffs, leads the Warrior offense with 14.1 ppg. In total, WSU has five players averaging double digits in the scoring column this season. Tommy Gathje (13.6), Devin Whitelow (12.6), Mason Domask (12.1) and Connor Flack (10.9) round out the scoring leaders. A total of five Warriors have scored in double digits in four of the last five games. WSU's 80.7 ppg are up from last year's scoring average (72.0) which ranked 14th in the league.

NSIC LEADERS
Early in the season, the Golden Bears have had several players rank near the top of the league in different statistical categories.

Bryndan Matthews has been impressive filling up the stat sheet as he has put up top-15 numbers in eight different categories. Matthews cleaned up the boards at a solid rate as his 7.1 rebounds per game rank ninth in the league (181st in the nation) while his 5.1 defensive boards per game ranks ninth (191st in the nation) as well. The junior has also been the team's go-to scorer as his 16.8 points per game rank 12th while he also ranks second in minutes per game (35.0) and 13th in assists per game (3.1)

In addition, Ted Brown ranks inside the top-10 in a few categories with his 60.4% shooting percentage (fifth) and 2.3 offensive rebounds per game (sixth).

NEARING 1,000
Junior Brydan Matthews has been a major contributor throughout his three seasons on campus and now finds himself closing in on becoming the 15th member of the 1,000 point club at Concordia. The Eagan native is just 56 points shy as he ranks 16th in program history with 944 points.