Northern Arizona (5-13, 4-8) vs. Southern Utah (15-3, 8-2)
America First Event Center, Cedar City, Utah; Wednesday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Two junior guards will be on display as Cameron Shelton and Northern Arizona will battle Tevian Jones and Southern Utah. Shelton has scored 33 percent of the team's points this season and is averaging 18.6 over his last five games. Jones is averaging 15.2 points over the last five games.
PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE: Both of these teams have depended heavily on their seniors this year. Jones, Maizen Fausett, John Knight III and Dre Marin have collectively accounted for 62 percent of Southern Utah's scoring this year and 44 percent of the team's points over its last five games. For Northern Arizona, Shelton, Luke Avdalovic and Nik Mains have scored 58 percent of the team's points this season, including 83 percent of all Lumberjacks points over their last five.
STEPPING IT UP: The Lumberjacks have scored 63.8 points per game and allowed 70.6 points per game against Big Sky opponents. Those figures both represent moves in the right direction from the 57.7 points scored and 80.7 points allowed per game to non-conference foes.
CREATING OFFENSE: Shelton has been directly responsible for 50 percent of all Northern Arizona field goals over the last five games. The junior guard has 36 field goals and 19 assists in those games.
STREAK SCORING: Southern Utah has won its last 13 home games, scoring an average of 87.8 points while giving up 64.3.
PASSING FOR POINTS: The Thunderbirds have recently converted buckets via assists more often than the Lumberjacks. Southern Utah has 53 assists on 105 field goals (50.5 percent) over its previous three outings while Northern Arizona has assists on 34 of 68 field goals (50 percent) during its past three games.
DID YOU KNOW: The Southern Utah offense has scored 85.3 points per game this season, ranking the Thunderbirds sixth nationally. The Northern Arizona defense has allowed 73.9 points per game to opponents (ranked 251st).
___
For more AP college basketball coverage:
___
This was generated by Automated Insights,
