Preview: @UNCO_MBB Start Last Regular Season Road Trip Saturday

Saturday, February 24

Grand Forks, N.D.

2 pm

University of Northern Colorado

University of North Dakota

Buy Tickets

2/23/2018 1:37:00 PM | Men's Basketball

UNC Game Notes G28 UND vs. Northern Colorado

By: Kurt Maddox, UNCBears.com

Greeley, Colo.—The Northern Colorado men will be on the road the rest of the season and their first stop is in Grand Forks, North Dakota. UNC (18-10, 9-6) plays only one team this week and it is a rematch of a thriller in Greeley as the Bears face North Dakota (10-17, 5-10) at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
Game time is 2 pm Mountain Time and will be broadcast on Pluto channel 240. Fans can listen in to 1310 KFKA and follow stats live at UNCBears.com.

Opening Tip
This will be the 71st overall meeting between Northern Colorado and North Dakota on the hardwood. The two teams laced up their shoes to face each other the first time in the NCAA Division II regionals where UND won a close one 84-81 way back in 1966.
In the last five matchups with North Dakota, there have been three overtime games and the other two were decided by one point each. UNC trails the overall series 25-45.

Last Time Out
Northern Colorado survived a slow start on Senior Night to win its final game in Bank of Colorado Arena for the regular season. UNC scored over 90 points for the second straight game and seventh time this season to hand Southern Utah a 97-80 defeat. Andre Spight once again broke the 40-point barrier in the win with 40 points.

Last Time vs North Dakota
The last time these two teams met turned into an instant classic with Andre Spight draining a half-court buzzer-beater in overtime to lift the Bears over the Fighting Hawks 94-91. UND scored in the final seconds of the second half to force overtime, and again at the end of the extra period, but Spight's shot kept it from going to a second. He finished the game with 34 points, six assists and two steals.

Secure Spot in the History Books
Jordan Davis moved into seventh all-time for points in his career. JD has scored 1,344 points so far and is only 19 points behind Sean Taibi (2004-08) (1,363) for sixth place. Davis is also seventh in assists with 307 and is only six behind Carlos Martinez (1996-00) (313). The Las Vegas native has made 497 field goals in his career which is eighth and two behind Devon Beitzel (2006-11) for seventh.

Andre Spight may not find his name in career totals for UNC but he will be at or near the top of many season records for Northern Colorado basketball. Spight is over the 600-point mark for the season at 602 points and this is only 85 points behind Beitzel for the single-season points record. UNC has three regular-season games left and at least one Big Sky Championship game which means he needs to average 21.25 points to tie Beitzel. Spight is now tied with Elliott Lloyd (2008-12) for assists in a season with 106.

Bear Tracks

UNC has been lighting up the scoreboard recently and now average over 80 points on the season (80.3). This mark puts the Bears second in the Big Sky behind only Portland State who averages 87.2. Northern Colorado is first in points averaged during the conference season with 81.2 per game.
If you want to score three points at a time, facing UNC is not who you want to face. The Bears have the second stingiest 3-point defense in the league. Teams are averaging 32.5 percent from beyond the arc and 31.6 percent since league games began.
Northern Colorado does not allow many second-chance opportunities as they are second in the conference and 31st nationally in defensive rebounds per game (27.93 drpg).
Andre Spight is second in points per game at 21.5ppg and trails Jerrick Harding of Weber State by .1 points for the whole season but because of his recent scoring, Dre is first since the conference season started (24.6 ppg).
Jalen Sanders is burning up the nets in his freshman season as he is shooting at an amazing 60.2 percent from the field which is third in the Big Sky season.
Spight is 13th in the nation for 3-pointers made with 90 and is tied with Tyler Hall of Montana State for the conference lead.

Scouting North Dakota

Brian Jones is in his 12th season as the head coach of the North Dakota men's basketball program and has been the driving force behind the team's successful transition to the Division I level. That transition was firmly cemented last season when the Fighting Hawks held true to their season-long motto of "Twenty and Tourney". UND finished with 22 wins and a 14-4 league record en route to the Big Sky regular season and tournament titles. Both win totals were Division I benchmarks for the program, who punched its first ticket to the Big Dance with a 93-89 overtime win against Weber State in the Big Sky Championship game. For those efforts, Jones collected his first Big Sky Coach of the Year honor and was named the NABC District 6 Coach of the Year as well.
Since the overtime loss in Greeley, the Fighting Hawks have struggled and only won three of the eight games they have played. Their wins were against Northern Arizona in OT, Southern Utah and Montana State.
UND is 5-3 at home during the conference season and 7-5 overall in Grand Forks. North Dakota has won four of their last five at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center with their only loss coming to Montana who is first in the league.
The Hawks have five players who average over 10.0 points per game and that showed in the game in Greeley where four players scored 84 of their 91 points led by Geno Crandall who had 30.
UND has been outscored by its opponents by almost 200 points on the season and most of that in the first half as they trail their foes by 121 points in the first 20 minutes.

What's Next
Northern Colorado's final two games of the regular season are out on the west coast. First up is Portland State Thursday, March 1st at 9 pm and UNC's final game takes place in Sacramento when the Bears play the Hornets of Sacramento State Saturday, March 3rd starting at 8:05 pm Mountain Time.

After that, the Northern Colorado men will head to Reno for the Big Sky Conference Tournament March 6th through the 10th.