Concord Matches Up With Charleston in Quarterfinal Round of MEC Tournament

Concord Stats - Charleston Stats - Live Audio - Live Stats - Live Video - MEC Tournament Guide - Men's Bracket - Complete Game Notes

ATHENS, W.Va. - The Concord University men's basketball starts Mountain East Conference Tournament play 8:15 p.m. Friday at the Charleston Civic Center as the number four seed in the postseason against the fifth-seeded University of Charleston. CU sports a mark of 19-9 overall and 14-8 in the MEC. Meanwhile, Charleston is 16-13 overall and 12-10 in the league.

LIVE COVERAGE
Live Audio
Live Stats
Live Video

Jason "Moose" Reed and Steve Cox will have full coverage of Saturday's night game on 97.3 FM in the Mercer County area and online at mywillie.com beginning with the pregame show at approximately 8:00 p.m. West Virginia Metronews' Travis Jones and Brad Howe will have commentary and live video of the game while the Mountain East Conference will provide live in-game statistics of the game. To access the live options, follow the links above, at the top of the page or by clicking here.

MOUNTAIN LION NOTES
With a 32-point performance on Senior Day against UVa.-Wise, senior guard Rob Reed went over 1,000 points for his career in a remarkable 57 games played.

Reed joins teammate and junior guard Aaron Miller as CU players to score 1,000 points this season.

Miller and Reed are the first set of Concord teammates since Javaughn Manuel and Cory Willard in 2011-12 to score their 1,000th point in the season.

It is the just the third time in school history a set of teammates have scored their 1,000th point in the same season, joining Todd Lusk and Ron Ward who topped 1,000 points in 1989-90.

On Tuesday, senior forward Terry Hopewell, Reed and senior forward Jametrius Wade were selected to the All-MEC Team. Reed, as a first-team selection, while Hopewell and Wade were honorable mention picks.

Reed led the MEC in three-pointers made during the regular season as he was only player to connect on 100 or triple and become the third CU player to do so in school history.

Hopewell was one of three MEC players to average a double-double for the season.

Wade scored 10 or more points in 25 games, and posting 11 double-double.

AddItionally, the Detroit, Michigan native put up his impressive numbers while guarding some of the best scorers in the league on a nightly basis.

While none of the all-conference players for CU were four-year players, all of them will leave their name in the career record as a Mountain Lions.

With 161 made three-pointers, Reed is 11th on the all-time three-pointers made list and needs five shots from distance to pass Matt Parker for 10th all-time.

Meanwhile, Wade is 13th all-time in career rebounding  per game at 7.7. That number also ranks 29th among Division II in career rebounding average.

As for Hopewell, he ranks fifth in career blocks with 90 swats in his three seasons at Concord. Furthermore, the Columbus, Ohio native is 14th all-time in rebounds with 645.

The three-pointer has become a speciality for the Mountain Lions as they have hit 274 triples this season, fifth-most in the MEC.

The 274 three-pointers are the second most in a single season for the Mountain Lions.

Even though the 1990-1991 connected on 316 three-pointers, this year's team has a better per game average on made three-pointers of 9.8 .

The duo of Miller and Reed have combined to drill 169 threes this season, third most among teammates in the MEC.

Additionally, CU is 9-1 this season when Miller scores 20 or more points in a game.

While Concord does not have a natural rival in the MEC, CU's closest geographical opponent is Charleston, and over the last few years Concord and the Golden Eagles have had some classic games.

Head coach Kent McBride has matched up 10 times against UC in his career and of the 10 games, seven of them have been decided by single digits, including five of the last six.

The average margin of victory for either team in those five games is 5.2 points.

Both games last year were decided by five points with each team winning  on its respective home court, and CU pulling out a 69-66 win on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Reed early this season at Concord.

However, UC gave Concord a 92-62 loss last Thursday in the Charleston Civic Center.

Bench play could be pivotal in Friday's game against UC.

Over the last five games, Charleston is scoring 21.6 points per game from its bench, however, Concord's bench has been coming on strong of late as they are averaging 16.4 points from the bench over the last 12 games.

In the previous 16 games, the Mountain Lions were only getting 14.9 points per game off the bench. Here's a breakdown of bench scoring over the last 12 contests, spearheaded by junior guard Cam Shannon.
 

Opponent	Bench Points	Leading Scorer
UVa.-Wise	24	Babe Murphy (7)
West Virginia State	30	Murphy (7)
Fairmont State	8	Shannon (4)
Shepherd	6	Tommy Bolte (3)
West Virginia Wesleyan	13	Shannon (11)
Glenville State	20	Bolte (8)
West Liberty	21	Shannon (10)
Wheeling Jesuit	11	Shannon (11)
Urbana	17	Shannon (9)
Notre Dame	10	Shannon (8)
Charleston	29	Shannon (10)
UVa.-Wise	9	Shannon (4)

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
2- Concord is 2-0 this season on neutral court this season.

29-  Last time CU made the semifinals of a conference tournament was a leap year, meaning February had 29 days. 

88- Number of points CU is averaging per game, the highest under McBride in the five years he's been at Concord.

SCOUTING CHARLESTON
The Golden Eagles advanced to the quarterfinals of the MEC Tournament by defeating Urbana 76-66 Tuesday at the Charleston Civic Center.

Despite being 11th in the league in points per game (73.9) and sixth in field goal percentage, UC has shot 50 percent or better in three of its last four games.

And while the Golden Eagles rank first in the MEC in defensive field goal percentage, CU has shot over 50 percent in both first halves against Charleston this season including 58.3 percetn (14-for-24) in the most recent meeting.

In the November game, the Mountain Lions shot 45.8 percent from the field. UC's field goal defense this season is 41.3 percent.

The Golden Eagles are led by Aleksander Kesic who averages 13.4 rebounds per game and 6.0 rebounds.

Kesic was named second team All-MEC earlier this week.

Tino DiTrapano (12.9 ppg) and Jevonte Hughes (12.6 ppg) also score in double figures for UC.