ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (4-4, 0-3 NSIC) returns home for their conference home opening weekend as they host Upper Iowa (3-5, 0-3 NSIC) on Friday and Winona State (4-4, 1-2 NSIC) on Saturday.

LAST TIME OUT
Concordia fell to 0-3 in league play as their comeback bids fell short at Sioux Falls on Friday and Southwest Minnesota State on Saturday.

CSP turned a 15 point deficit with under six minutes to play into a two-possession game in the final minute against USF before coming up on the short end of a game featuring 16 lead changes against SMSU. Despite the losses, the Golden Bears were much more efficient than the opposition with a 50.0% (65-130) shooting percentage compared to 46.5% (59-127) for their opponents.

Bryndan Matthews paced the squad with 22.0 points on 64.3% shooting to go along with 8.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists in the full 40.0 minutes per game. Isaiah McKay followed close behind with 19.5 points while also chipping in 5.0 boards, 2.5 assists and 2.0 steals.

UIU SERIES HISTORY
Heading into Friday's matchup, the Golden Bears hold a record of 14-15 against the Peacocks. CSP has found most of their success against UIU in Fayette as they have won nine of 14 meetings there, including five of the last eight. On their home court, the Golden Bears have gone 5-8 against the Peacocks. 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 7-1 in the series.

LAST MEETING VS UIU
Back on Feb. 10 in St. Paul, the Golden Bears suffered a heart-breaking loss in their regular season home finale as they saw a last second shot rattle out in a 74-73 loss to Upper Iowa.

The Golden Bears led for 31:10 on the night, including nearly the entire second half until a Quentin Blaue gave the Peacocks the decisive edge at 74-73.
 
Concordia utilized a hefty 51-33 edge on the glass, including a huge 17-3 edge in offensive boards, to finish with 18 more shot attempts on the night but were unable to take advantage. CSP finished at 39.2% (29-74) from the floor while UIU connected on 44.6% (25-56) overall. The Peacocks also out-paced Concordia 11-8 from deep and hit 13 free throws compared to seven for CSP.
 
Bryndan Matthews paced the squad with his fifth 20-10 game of the season as he led all players with 21 points and 10 boards on the night. Matthews also chipped in four steals and three assists despite being banged up throughout the night.
 
Avan Ward added a double-digit effort with 16 points with four threes while Brandon McRoy chipped in nine and Elliot Kane put up eight off the bench. Max Keefe and Evan Wesenberg each contributed nine boards in the effort.

ABOUT THE PEACOCKS
After rattling off three consecutive wins heading to NSIC action, Upper Iowa has dropped three in a row in league play to fall to 3-5 overall heading into the weekend.

Last weekend on their home court, UIU was stifled by Wayne State in an 83-56 loss on Friday before seeing Augustana pull away in the second half on Saturday in a 91-76 loss. Scoring has been hard to come by early in conference play as the Peacocks rank 16th in the league in scoring (60.7) and field goal percentage (39.8%) as well as rebounding margin (-10.7) and turnover margin (-4.0).

Scoring has been fairly balanced so far this year for the Peacocks as six different players are averaging between 8.6 and 14.4 points per game. Jareese Williams paces the squad with 14.4 points on 50.7% from the floor, 47.7% from three and 90.0% from the free throw line while Joe Smoldt has chipped in 13.0 points, 3.8 assists and 3.4 boards per night. Munachiso Okonkwo leads the way with 4.9 rebounds and nearly two blocks in just 17.3 minutes per game as well.

WSU SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears head into Friday's meeting with Winona State with a record of 6-45 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 seven and four in the past 11 meetings. In 21 meetings in St. Paul, CSP is 2-19.

LAST MEETING VS WSU
Back on Feb. 9, CSP fell behind early and was unable to bounce back in a 90-56 loss to Winona State.

Turnovers told the story as CSP committed 26 resulting in 24 points for the Warriors while Winona State turned it over just twice for no points for the Golden Bears. Bench scoring was similarly lopsided as WSU tallied 43 points off the bench while Concordia had eight. Winona State also out-rebounded CSP 34-25 on the night to go along with a 12-7 edge in three-pointers made.
 
Avan Ward paced the squad on the offensive end with a game-high 24 points on 8-19 shooting to go along with six boards. Ward has now scored 20 or more in eight games this year, including three of the last five.
 
Ahmad Newsome hit all three of his shots, including a pair of threes, to put up nine points while Bryndan Matthews added nine as well. Newsome also chipped in five rebounds and three assists while Matthews picked up six boards.

ABOUT THE WARRIORS
It's been a bit of an up-and-down start for Winona State as they have gone 4-4 so far by losing their first two games before winning the next four and losing the last two.

After picking up a comfortable 72-50 win over Upper Iowa in the conference opener, the Warriors dropped a pair of close contests at home with an 88-80 loss to Augustana on Friday and an 82-80 overtime loss to Wayne State on Saturday. WSU has been unselfish with the basketball over the first three league games as they rank third in the NSIC with 14.3 assists per game while their defense has had opponents to 73.3 points per night, good for sixth.

Balance has been the name of the game for the Warriors so far this year with no players registering more than 12.8 points or 29.0 minutes per game. Kevion Taylor leads the way in both categories in addition to rebounding (6.6 per game) while Caleb Wagner has also scored in double figures with 10.8 points, 3.8 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game as well. Devin Whitelow averages a team-best 4.4 assists per game to go along with 9.6 points and 1.5 steals per night.

NCAA/NSIC LEADERS
Heading into conference play, the Golden Bears had several players rank near the top of the NSIC and the nation in different statistical categories.

Bryndan Matthews has been one of the top players in the country early on this season as he ranks fourth in the conference and 27th in NCAA DII in scoring (22.1) while ranking third in the conference and ranking 23rd in the nation in rebounding (9.6). Matthews also registers in at fourth in the NSIC and 36th in the nation in assists per game (5.8), third in the NSIC and 56th in the nation in offensive rebounds per game (3.1), second in the NSIC and ninth in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.8) and second in the NSIC and 34th in the nation in field goal percentage (60.6%) all in a nation-leading 40.1 minutes per game.
 
In addition, Isaiah McKay ranks near the top in quite a few categories as well. McKay ranks just ahead Matthews in scoring (22.3) to rank third in the league and rank 35th in the country while ranking second in the conference and eighth in the country in threes made per game (3.3), sixth in the conference and 40th in the country in defensive rebounds per game (6.5) and ninth in the conference and 162nd in the country in assists per game (3.8) in his 35.5 minutes per game, good for third in the conference and 55th in the country.

CLIMBING THE RANKS
Senior Bryndan Matthews has been a major contributor throughout his four seasons on campus and is climbing the career ranks at Concordia. The Eagan native is up to fourth in scoring (1,444), third in rebounds (658), fourth in rebounds per game (6.9), fourth in field goals made (531), fifth in free throws made (323), ninth in assists (230) and 10th in steals (119) in his career at CSP.