Preview: @UNCO_MBB Still Roaring into the CIT Semifinals

Greeley, Colo.—Northern Colorado is on the verge of accomplishing something that a UNC team has never done in Division I, win a postseason tournament. The Bears are only two hurdles away from the accomplishment.

The first of the two hurdles come in the form of the Sam Houston State Bearkats in Wednesday night's CIT semifinals at 7 pm. This game will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network directly after the University of Illinois Chicago and Liberty game which is the other CIT semifinal game. 1310 KFKA will have the radio call of the game and you can follow stats live on uncbears.com.

Ticket Info
Tickets are available online at UNCBears.com/tickets 24/7, or by calling 970-351-4849 or visiting the UNC Athletics Box Office at Nottingham Field Monday through Friday from 10 am to 5 pm. The box office will open at 5:30 pm on Wednesday for gameday sales. Season ticket holders may reserve the same seats they had during the regular season by calling or visiting the box office by 5 pm. on Monday. Ticket prices are $30 for Courtside, $15 for Premium Reserved, $10 for End Reserved and $5 for General Admission, plus fees.

Cache Bank and PDC will provide free entry for any full-time UNC student. Bank of Colorado will pick one lucky student to attempt a half-court shot and if the student hits the shot, they will win $1,000.Student's are encourage to register for the half court shot before the game by clicking here.

Opening Tip
This is the first time Sam Houston and Northern Colorado play against each other. SHSU hails from the Southland Conference and in fact, UNC has only played four teams who currently call the Southland home 13 times and 11 of those games were against Abilene Christian or Texas A&M Corpus Christi. The Bears have a record of 3-10 versus those Southland Conference teams. The last time UNC faced a Southland team was in the 2014 CIT where the Bears fell to Texas A&M CC 82-71.

Last Time Out
The Bears trailed at the half but came out in the second half like a UNC team fans are used to seeing during this second part of the season to move on to the semifinals of CIT with their 86-75 win over the Toreros of San Diego. Anthony Johnson surpassed the 1,000 point mark with his 20 points in the contest. UNC had three players score 20 or more points. Andre Spight (26), Jordan Davis (21) and Johnson (20) took over the game in the second half to propel the Bears to the CIT semis.

Bear Tracks

With 26 points against San Diego, Spight moved to third on the Big Sky Men's Basketball single-season scoring list with 792 points, the most in the league since 1979. He passed Damian Lillard for third and needs 21 points to pass second place and 54 to be the record holder.
Spight is also approaching the top spot for 3-point field goals made in Big Sky history for a season. The redshirt senior currently has 118 makes which is currently third and trails Stephan Sir of Northern Arizona by six for second and Tyler Harvey by 10 3s for the record.
Dre can be the third Bear this year to reach 1,000 points for his career if he scores 29 on Wednesday.
Jordan Davis is only 18 points behind Derek Chaney (1990-94) for fourth place all-time in UNC history.
The Bears are one win away from most wins in a season in Northern Colorado history. Tad Boyle led UNC to a 25-8 record during the 2009-10 season and that season ended in the CIT as the Bears fell to Pacific in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
UNC has crushed the single-season record for 3s made by the team. The previous record was 254 last season. The Bears have made 314 this year and Andre Spight leads the team with 118 triples this year.
Northern Colorado has scored 2,907 points this season and passed the previous Bears' best season for points. They need 93 more to reach 3,000 but that is just padding their lead in the record books of the Big Sky. The previous high mark for single-season points was Eastern Washington in the 2014-15 season when they scored 2,820 on the year.

Scouting Sam Houston State
Jason Hooten was named Bearkats coach April 2nd, 2010. Sam Houston State University has compiled nine 20-victory seasons in its 29 years at the NCAA Division I level. Hooten has been a part of seven of those eight seasons either as head coach or as an assistant.
Since he joined the staff in July 2004, the Bearkats have compiled a record of 277-172. The Sam Houston men have earned Southland tournament berths each of his 14 years in Huntsville (winning the event in 2010, also reaching the finals in 2006, 2014 and 2015 and the semifinals eight times).
Southland Conference champions in 2010, Sam Houston has finished among the top three teams in the league 10 of the last 14 years. In that time the Kats won three West Division titles and advanced to national post-season play four times.

SHSU finished the regular season 18-13 and placed fourth in the Southland Conference. Sam Houston won one game in the SLC tourney then lost in the quarterfinals to overall No. 1 seed Southeast Louisiana.
The Bearkats have won both CIT games this season by seven points as they beat Eastern Michigan 69-62 and UTSA 76-69.
SHSU's leading scorer is Chris Galbreath Jr. averages 14.5 per game and is also the leading rebounder by pulling down eight rebounds per game. The only other Bearkat to put up double digits in the scoring column is John Dewey III who scores 10.3 per contest.
Galbreath has 12 double-doubles on the season and that ranks him 47th in the nation among players who have recorded double-doubles.
Galbreath is the only player on Sam Houston to start all 35 games as 11 other players have started at least one game this year. Dewey has only not started one game this season.
SHSU has won most of their games in the second half as there is only a one-point difference in the first half but the Bearkats have outscored their opponents by 121 in the second half.
The Bears are coming off playing one of the nation's best 3-point percentage defenses in San Diego and now they will have to face the 20th best 3-point defensive teams in the Bearkats. SHSU only allows their foes to hit 31.7 percent of their 3s.
Sam Houston and Northern Colorado have one common opponent on the season and that is the Idaho Vandals. The Bearkats lost that game at the beginning of their season 63-54 and the Bears won both of their games vs Idaho.

What's Next
If the Bears win, UNC will play in the CIT championship game Friday at 5 pm MT. They will play the winner of the other semifinal game which takes place right before the Bears' semifinal game between University of Illinois-Chicago and Liberty University.
To keep up to date on all things UNC men's basketball, follow the team on UNCBears.com and on Twitter @UNCO_MBB.

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