Preview: Red Hot @UNCO_MBB Looking for Five Straight

Greeley, Colo.—The Northern Colorado men's team is heading in two directions, west to their next game and north in the standings. The Bears are in the midst of the four-game win streak and will test their hot hands in the city that never sleeps. UNC will battle its second-straight Mountain West school on the road as they play UNLV Friday at 8 pm.

As always, you can listen to 1310 KFKA for all the action and follow live stats on UNCBears.com. The game will be exclusively broadcast by Stadium on Facebook and the UNC social media accounts will send out the live link right before the game is set to start.

Opening Tip
This will be the first time the Bears and the Running Rebels face off on the hardwood. The trip west will allow junior guard Jordan Davis to visit his old stomping grounds where he played at Canyon Springs High School. JD led his team to back-to-back regional titles and state finals appearances.

Three is Better Than Two
The Bears have launched 727 total shots in the short season and 331 on those hurls at the bucket are from deep. This means 45.5 percent of the time UNC will be looking for the shot from above the arc compared to 24 percent (180 of 725 attempts have been 3's) from their opponents. The guys in Blue and Gold have upped their 3-point percentage from 27.7 percent at game six to 33.2 percent after the win in Wyoming. UNC makes 9.2 bombs per game while holding its foes to just 4.8.

No Three For You!
While the Bears live and die by the 3's, UNC has held their opponents to only 15 3-point attempts per game and the Bears attempt 27.5. UNC opponents have scored only 174 of their 803 points from distance. This means only 21.6 percent of points scored against Northern Colorado are from beyond the arc.

Last Time Out
The Bears leaped out to an early 15-0 lead on Wyoming with five 3's. UNC only let Wyoming lead once in the game as they busted many different streaks in the 91-84 victory. Wyoming had won four straight vs UNC and hadn't lost to the Bears at home in over 80 years but with the leadership of Andre Spight who finished with 24 points to lead the Bears to victory. UNC also broke up the 20-game non-conference home and 13-game overall home winning streaks for the Pokes while winning their fourth-in-a-row.

Bear Tracks

UNC pulls down more defensive boards than any other Big Sky team as the Bears clean the glass 29.7 times per game. This mark is tied for 17th among all Division I teams.
Northern Colorado is second in the conference for 3-pointers attempted (331). The Bears are tied for 21st nationally in this statistic.
The Bears are second in blocks per game (4.33) and first in total blocks (52) among Big Sky teams.
In field goal percentage, UNC is shooting 45.2 percent on the year and that is tied for third in the Big Sky.
Northern Colorado is just stingy on the defense as they are second in the conference in points allowed per game with 66.9. Nationally this stat puts the Bears 79th out of 351 teams.

Scouting UNLV

Marvin Menzies is in his second season at the helm of the UNLV men's team. Menzies came back to Las Vegas after nine years as the head coach at New Mexico State. He was a UNLV assistant coach in 2004-05. After completing his first year leading the Runnin' Rebel program, he brought in a recruiting class for the 2017-18 season that has been ranked as high as No. 12 in the country and includes McDonald's High School All-American Brandon McCoy and National Junior College Player of the Year Shakur Juiston
The Rebels come into the game at 10-2 and 4-1 at the Thomas and Mack Center. Their only loss at home was to 18th ranked Arizona, 91-88 in overtime.
Freshman Brandon McCoy is the Runnin' Rebels heavy hitter. McCoy has eight double-doubles on the season in their 12 games. The 7'1" center is averaging 19.6 points per game with six games over 20 points. He also is a monster on the boards (10.8 rpg) and all but four games he has at least 10 boards. McCoy isn't the only one grabbing more than 10 boards a game. Juiston is the leading rebounder at 10.9 rpg.
The Bears will have to clamp down on UNLV because the Rebels average over 91 points per game and they do not waste opportunities as they shot a blistering 52.0 percent and hold their opponents to 38.0 percent. The 52.0 percent shooting is top 10 in all of Division I
UNLV has played two overtime games this season and lost both of them. Other than those two games, the Runnin' Rebels have outscored their opponents by 18.6 points per game.
As you can imagine with two double-digit rebounders, UNLV cleans the glass at a rate of 44.2 per game (fifth in the nation) and holds the other team to 35.4 per contest.

What's Next
The Bears round out 2017 by opening Big Sky Conference play at home with a 7 pm tip December 29 versus Eastern Washington and an afternoon tip of 2 pm New Year's Eve against Idaho. Tickets are available at UNCBears.com, at the UNC Box Office M-F from Noon-5pm or at 970.351.1679 during those same business hours.

Holiday Break
The University of Northern Colorado, including the Ticket Office, will be closed the week of December 29.

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