Men's Basketball | 2.14.18

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (5-21, 4-16 NSIC) finishes off the regular season this weekend as they travel to Sioux Falls (17-9, 12-8 NSIC) on Friday and Southwest Minnesota State (19-7, 15-5 NSIC) on Saturday in NSIC action.

LAST TIME OUT
After seeing Winona State pull away last Friday, the Golden Bears suffered a heart-breaking one-point defeat at the hands of Upper Iowa.

In the loss to the Peacocks, Concordia had four shots to take the lead in the final minute, including a last-second fadeaway six-footer from Bryndan Matthews, but were unable to hit any of them. It was a dominant performance on the glass for CSP as they held a staggering 85-58 edge in rebounding, including 23-8 on the offensive glass in the two games. Turnovers and shooting cost the Golden Bears as they committed 40 turnovers and forced 16 while shooting 41.5% compared to 47.1% for their opponents.

Avan Ward surpassed 20+ points for the eighth time on the season on Friday as he averaged 20.0 points and 4.0 boards with 4.0 threes made per game on the weekend. Bryndan Matthews carried the load on Saturday with his fifth 20-10 game of the year to give him 15.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.0 steals per night in the two games.

USF SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears and Cougars are meeting for the 21st time in the all-time series as CSP enters with a 6-14 record against USF. The Golden Bears have been able to turn the tide in their favor a little bit more in recent years as they followed up 10 losses in 11 meetings by taking three of four between 2015 and 16. In the last two years, the Cougars returned to their winning ways by winning each of the last three meetings. In eight  previous trips to USF, Concordia has claimed just two wins.

LAST MEETING VS USF
In the meeting in St. Paul on Jan. 20, Concordia was unable to keep pace in an 85-64 loss to Sioux Falls at Gangelhoff Center.

Turnovers proved to be a deciding factor on the night as Sioux Falls forced 14 CSP turnovers while committing just four. The result was a massive 25-2 edge in point off of turnovers, which proved to be the difference. The Cougars also took care of business down low with a 40-26 advantage in points in the paints to aid their 54.0% (34-63) from the floor. Concordia finished the night at 40.4% (23-57) shooting. On the glass, CSP managed a 36-33 edge, including 9-4 on the offensive side. CSP also shot better from deep as they matched USF's nine made threes on five fewer attempts (19 to 24).

All nine Golden Bear players that played on the night scored points, led by 13 points from Elliot Kane and Bryndan Matthews. Kane gave the team a spark off the bench as he hit 5-7 from the floor and 3-4 from deep. Matthews added a team-best seven points along with four assists as well.
 
Avan Ward joined the duo in double digits with 11 points while chipping in six assists and four boards in the game while Ted Brown finished a bucket shy of a double-double with eight points and a career-high 12 rebounds.

ABOUT THE COUGARS
Since the two teams last met in January, Sioux Falls has won four of six contest to improve their record to 17-9 overall and 12-8 in conference play. The Cougars had a four-game winning streak snapped this past Saturday in a double-digit loss at Wayne State

Prior to the loss to Wayne State, Trevon Evans had 23 points and Aaron Rothermund added a career-high 21 to lead Sioux Falls to its fourth straight win and a season sweep of Augustana by a score of 88-86. It was USF's first regular season sweep of Augie since 1941. For the fifth time in eight games, USF shot better than 50 percent from the field, hitting 33-of-65 shots for 50.8 percent. The Cougars hit 12 three-pointers (28 attempts) for the second straight game.

It's been a two-man wrecking crew on the offensive end for the Cougars as Trevon Evans has put up 20.3 points while Drew Guebert has chipped in 19.8 points per game. Evans also contributed 4.9 rebounds, 3.0 assists and just over a steal a night while Guebert has added 5.8 boards and 2.8 assists. After those two, no other USF players that have played in at least 10 games have put up more than 6.4 points per night.

SMSU SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears enter Saturday night's contest with a record of 10-28 against Southwest Minnesota State. After losing seven straight in the series from 2011-14, CSP won three out of the first four meetings under head coach Joey James. Since then, the Mustangs have won four in a row to move James' mark to 3-4 against SMSU. It's been tough going for Concordia in Marshall as they have gone 3-16 in 19 trips to SMSU. CSP's last win there came back in 2015.

LAST MEETING VS SMSU
Back on Jan. 19, the Golden Bears dropped their first contest of a five-game home stand by a score of 79-64 against Southwest Minnesota State.

Concordia managed to out-shoot the Mustangs 47.1% (25-51) to 45.9% (28-61) while also holding a 38-28 advantage in points in the paint, but were unable to capitalize as SMSU led from nearly start to finish. Southwest Minnesota State took advantage of a 15-7 edge in points off turnovers, 11-2 edge in second chance points, and a 9-3 edge in three-pointers made. SMSU also held a 33-29 edge in rebounding as they grabbed 10 offensive boards compared to four for CSP.

Bryndan Matthews paced the squad with a game-high 23 points as he knocked down 9-15 from the floor and 5-7 from the free throw line. He also added five boards on the night.
 
Ted Brown joined him in double figures with 10 points on 3-4 shooting and 4-4 from the charity stripe while also leading the squad with seven rebounds in the loss. Avan Ward chipped in nine points, four assists, three rebounds, three steals and two blocks while Max Keefe added seven points and three boards on the night.

ABOUT THE MUSTANGS
Riding a five-game winning streak, Southwest Minnesota State can clinch at least a share of its second straight NSIC South Division championship with a pair of victories. MSU opens the weekend in first place in the NSIC South standings while SMSU trails them by just one game.

SMSU closed its regular season road schedule defeating Wayne State, 75-60, and Augustana, 81-77, last weekend. SMSU hit 10 3-pointers as a team and Carter Kirk dominated inside with 15 points and 13 rebounds in the win over WSC.
KJ Davis tied for the team lead with 16 points on 7 of 9 shooting while Taylor Schafer went 4 of 7 from deep and finished with 16 points as well. Michael Lee poured in a career-high 19 points with five 3-pointers to help pace a balanced scoring attack for the Mustangs in the win over Augustana.

Ryan Bruggeman is averaging a team-high 16.4 ppg with a team-high 150 assists. He ranks seventh in the NSIC in scoring (17.0) and third in assists (6.2). Carter Kirk is scoring 14.8 ppg with a team-high 10.5 rpg. He also has a team-high 25 blocked shots and is shooting 61 percent from the field. Kirk leads the NSIC in rebounding (11.0) and is fifth in field goal pct. (61.0). KJ Davis is scoring 10.3 ppg with 22 3-pointers, 45 assists and 36 steals. Michael Lee has made a team-leading 57 3-pointers, while Taylor Schafer has made 40 3-pointers and Nick Dufault has connected on 39 3-pointers.

NSIC LEADERS
On 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 six different categories. Matthews cleaned up the boards at a solid rate as his 7.1 rebounds per game rank eighth in the league (170th in the nation) while his 2.5 offensive boards per game rank third (136th in the nation) as well. The junior has also been the team's go-to scorer as his 17.1 points per game rank seventh while he also ranks third in minutes per game (35.4).

In addition, Ted Brown ranks inside the top-15 with his 60.5% shooting percentage (seventh) while Avan Ward registers in at fifth in threes made per game with 2.5 and Evan Wesenberg ranks 12th with 0.8 blocks per game.

CLIMBING THE RANKS
Junior Bryndan Matthews has been a major contributor throughout his three seasons on campus and has started to climb the career ranks at Concordia. The Eagan native is up to 10th in scoring (1,221), fifth in rebounds (568), fourth in rebounds per game (6.8), seventh in free throws made (276) and seventh in field goals made (446) in his career at CSP.