ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (12-4, 7-3 NSIC) will gear up to host a pair of Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference opponents this weekend, taking on Minnesota Crookston (3-13, 2-8 NSIC) on Friday and Bemidji State (6-10, 3-7 NSIC) on Saturday at the Gangelhoff Center.

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BEVO FRANCIS AWARD WATCH LIST
On Wednesday, senior guard Antwan Kimmons was named the Bevo Francis Award Top 100 Watch List.

The Clarence "Bevo" Francis Award is presented annually to the player who has had the finest overall season within Small College Basketball. Considerations will be season statistics and individual achievements, awards, personal character and team achievements. This is an incredibly prestigious award, as this award will only be given to one player within Small College Basketball per season. The list is comprised of players from NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, NAIA, USCAA, and NCCAA.

On February 15th, the list will be reduced to the Top 50 players. One month later on March 15th, the Top 25 players will be announced. On April 5th, the finalists of this year's award will be announced, followed by the Bevo Francis Award winner being crowned on April 7th.

LAST TIME OUT
The Golden Bears played just one single game last week, falling to St. Cloud State 93-89 at the Gangelhoff Center on Wednesday.

In the first half, the Golden Bears battled back from an early 11-point hole to trail by four points at 38-34 at halftime. The Huskies continued to carry the lead throughout the entirety of the second half with their advantage peaking at 11 points once again, but the Golden Bears mounted another response to tie the game at 84 each with just 1:44 to play. That proved to be all they could do as St. Cloud State quickly regained the lead and held on for a 93-89 lead.

The reigning NABC/D2CIDA National Player of the Week, senior guard Antwan Kimmons filled up the box score once again with 31 points, nine assists, six rebounds, and a steal. Kimmons finished the night 9-of-23 from the field and 11-of-16 from the free throw line. The senior has now scored 30 or more points in a game 11 times in his career at CSP, the most by any player in program history.

Junior guard Reid Patterson made his first start of the season, scoring a season-high 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and a steal. Senior forward Cade Meyer neared a double-double, scoring 13 points on 6-of-11 shooting while leading the team with nine rebounds and adding a pair of blocks. Senior guard Ian Sluice joined them in double figures with 12 points and two rebounds.

MINNESOTA CROOKSTON SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears hold an all-time record of 27-10 against the Golden Eagles, including a mark of 13-4 in meetings at the Gangelhoff Center. The series has been more even in recent years, with each of the two teams taking five of the last 10 matchups.
 
LAST MEETING WITH THE GOLDEN EAGLES
The two teams split the season series last year, with Concordia winning 86-76 in Crookston, Minn. on November 15 and UMC coming up with an 84-82 victory in St. Paul on January 27.
In the January 27 loss to UMC, the Golden Bears led for over half of the contest, but they couldn't hang on as the Golden Eagles snuck away with their 10^th win in 37 meetings between the two schools and fourth win in 17 trips to St. Paul.
 
CSP knocked down 13 threes for the second night in a row as they connected on an efficient 46.4% (13-28) from deep, and they added a commanding edge of 14-6 on the offensive glass and a 31-10 edge in points in the paint, but it wasn't enough on the night.
 
Despite attempting 10 less shots from the floor, Minnesota Crookston made four more field goals as they were a super-efficient 58.6% (34-58) shooting compared to 44.1% (30-68) for Concordia.
 
Marcus Skeete flirted with a triple-double on the night as he led the team with 19 points, nine boards and seven assists while Reid Patterson knocked down 4-6 from three-point range to finish with 14 points.
 
Off the bench, Sean Mathieu and Chet Kloss combined for 23 points as Mathieu finished with 13 points, four rebounds and a pair of assists while Kloss hit 4-5 from the floor to chip in 10 points, three rebounds and two steals.
 
Blaize Sagna caught fire in the second half for the Golden Eagles as he scored 27 of his game-high 34 points after the break in the win.

BEMIDJI STATE SERIES HISTORY
CSP has posted an all-time record of 19-20 against Bemidji State, including a mark of 14-6 at the Gangelhoff Center. The Beavers have been the stronger team in recent years, going 6-4 against the Golden Bears in the last 10 meetings. The teams met just once last season with Concordia claiming a 92-84 win on January 26 in St. Paul.  
 
LAST MEETING WITH THE BEAVERS
When the two teams last met, CSP came away with a 92-84 victory at the Gangelhoff Center.

The Golden Bears did not trail the entire night as they held off the Beavers to pull within one win of .500 in the all-time series, moving to 19-20 in 39 meetings, including a 14-6 mark on their home court. CSP also improved to 7-2 in games they scored 85 or more points and 4-0 in games they scored 90 or more.
 
CSP took care of the basketball as they turned it over just four times, resulting in two BSU points, while they scored 15 points on eight turnovers for the Beavers. Concordia also received production from across the lineup with five different players scoring in double figures and eight scoring at least five. The Golden Bear bench provided a spark as they outscored Bemidji State's reserves 33-11.
 
Concordia had the advantage from beyond the arc and at the free throw line as they hit 13 threes while holding BSU to eight while they also hit 17-21 (81.0%) from the free throw line compared to 8-12 (66.7%) for BSU.
 
Marcus Skeete paced the squad with 24 points and eight rebounds on an efficient 9-13 shooting and 5-6 from the free throw line in the win. Ben Kopetzki also filled the stat sheet with 17 points, six assists, three boards and two steals while Sean Mathieu came off the bench to provide 12 points, five assists, five rebounds and three made threes in the victory.
 
Ian Sluice chipped in 13 points and four rebounds while John Grigsby scored 10 points on the night.
 
BSU's John Sutherland led all players with 28 points and 12 rebounds in the loss.

STAT LEADERS
The Golden Bears continue to rank highly on the conference and national statistics leaderboards in many important categories, particularly on offense.

As a team, CSP's scoring average of 88.4 points per game paces the NSIC and ranks 16th in all of Division II. Concordia also leads the league with 39.56 rebounds per game as a team, and ranks fourth with 14.8 assists per game. The Golden Bears' team field goal percentage of 49.3% also paces the conference and is 24^th in all of Division II.
 
The Golden Bears have been successful in drawing defensive contact throughout the season, ranking second in the league with an average of 24.1 free throw attempts per game.

Senior guard Antwan Kimmons has been one of the top players in all of NCAA Division II so far this season, leading the NSIC and ranking top 10 in the nation in both points (25.8) and assists (6.1) per game. The senior leads all of Division II with 152 made free throws this season, and paces the conference and ranks third in the country with 139 made field goals. Kimmons has scored 40 or more points three times so far this season, including a pair of 43-point performances, and is the only Golden Bear with more than one such game in his career. His current scoring average of 25.8 points per game would be the highest single-season mark in school history by more than one full point. On December 21, Kimmons' 40-point game against Minnesota Duluth made him the 20th member of CSP's 1,000-point club. 

Marcus Skeete has been Concordia's top rebounder, pulling down an average of 7.5 per game, good for seventh most in the NSIC.

Senior forward Cade Meyer's field goal percentage of 67.6% is good for second in the conference and 11th in all of Division II so far this year.