Concord Goes for Season Sweep of Urbana, Notre Dame at Home

Concord Stats - Urbana Stats - Notre Dame Stats - Live Audio - Live Video - Live Stats (Urbana) - Live Stats (Notre Dame) - Complete Game Notes

ATHENS, W.Va. - The 2015-16 regular season has come down to four games for the Concord University men's basketball team as it prepares for three of those contests at home beginning with Urbana 7:30 p.m. Thursday and continuing with Notre Dame 4:00 p.m. Saturday.

LIVE COVERAGE
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The Concord University Sports Information Department will provide live in-game statistics for both games as well as live video. Jason "Moose" Reed and Steve Cox will have live radio coveage of each game on 97.3 "Willie" FM locally and online at mywillie.com. To access any of the live coverage, follow the links above, at the top of the page or click here.

MOUNTAIN LION NOTES
Concord comes into this week with a mark of 16-8 overall and 11-7 in the MEC.

UU has struggled with a record of 1-22 overall and 0-18 in conference play.

Notre Dame has an identical mark to CU overall at 16-8 and is 10-8 against league foes.

By going for a career-high 22 points at West Liberty, junior guard Michael Sanchez is averaging double figures for the first time since Jan. 6, and all five Concord starters are back into double-digit scoring averages since early January.

Only Shepherd and Wheeling Jesuit have five players scoring 10 or more points per game.

Not only can Concord's starters score the ball, but junior guard Cam Shannon has poured in 10 or more points in three of his last four games.

Senior guard Rob Reed went over 500 points this season on the road trip.

It is the second consecutive season that CU has had a player score 500 or points after junior guard Aaron Miller posted 526 points a season ago.

For Reed, he needs 97 points to reach 1,000 for his career. As for Miller, he went over 1,100 points for his career, the 27th player in CU history to score 1,100 or more points.

Additionally, Miller needs 83 points this season to score 500 and be the first CU player since Javaughn Manuel in 2010-11 and 2011-12 to post back-to-back seasons of 500 points.

Three Ohio natives appear on the CU roster in freshman guard Tommy Bolte, senior forward Terry Hopewell and sophomore forward Babe Murphy.

Hopewell, particularly, likes playing the two teams from his home state. In 10 games against NDC and UU, Hopewell is averaging 11.3 points and 8.3 rebounds per game that includes three double-doubles.

Earlier this season, Hopewell posted 22 points and nine rebounds at Urbana. Last season at home, Hopewell had 17 points and 16 rebounds against Notre Dame.

Concord has already collected season sweeps of Glenville State and West Virginia State.

The final four teams on CU's regular season schedule, Charleston, Notre Dame, Urbana and UVa.-Wise, the Mountain Lions have already beaten once this season.

If Concord can finish the regular season 4-0, it will collect six season sweeps of the other 11 MEC schools.

It would be the second straight season CU has swept at least half of the conference schools after beating six teams twice last season.

Since the inception of the MEC prior to the 2013-2014 season, Concord has won all five matchups against the Blue Knights and its the only MEC school that head coach Kent McBride owns a perfect mark against in his coaching career.

Two of the first three meetings were decided by less than 10 points before Concord handled UU, 91-70, last season at the Carter Center behind 22 points from Miller and a double-double from Reed of 15 points and 11 rebounds.

Earlier this season, Concord downed UU 100-90 as Reed scored 26 and Hopewell 22.

CU was able to beat Urbana earlier this season on the road due in large part to a 22-0 run to open the second half where Concord went from trailing by eight at halftime to being up 14, 64-50, with 14 minutes left in the game.

What made the run the most impressive was Concord only missed one shot during the run going 9-for-10 from the floor and shooting 4-for-4 at the foul line.

Reed led scorers with eight points but five different Mountain Lions scored during the run. Here's a breakdown of the run.
 

Player	Points	FGM-FGA
Rob Reed	8	3-3
Terry Hopewell	7	3-3
Jametrius Wade	3	1-1
Tommy Bolte	2	1-1
Aaron Miller	2	1-1

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
18.7- CU has won four straight February home games dating back to last season and has won those games by 18.7 on average.

94.6- Concord is averaging 94.6 points per game against Urbana in the last three meetings.

146- Miller and Reed have combined for 146 three-pointers this season which is the most for  a CU duo since Matt Parker and Cory Willard had 156 in 2008-09.

SCOUTING URBANA
The Blue Knights have not won a game since mid-November when the defeated Salem International 87-70.

Carlas Jackson leads the MEC in free-throw shooting at 90.6 percent (77-for-85).

Jackson also paces Urbana in scoring (15.9 ppg) while Jahmere Howze is scorign 15.4 ppg.

SCOUTING NOTRE DAME
NDC starts the week one game back of Concord for the fourth seed in the MEC standings.

Tyree Gaiter leads the Falcons in scoring (23.7 ppg) and is second in the league in scoring.

Gaiter and Kyauta Tayler both rank in the top five in the MEC in three-pointer shooting.

Taylor is shooting 45.7 (69-for-151) percent while Gaiter is 45.1 (78-for-173) percent from beyond the arc.

Will Vorhees is averaging a double-double of 20.8 ppg and 10.0 rebounds per game.