Concordia Chicago men's basketball heads back on the road to the Hoosier state Wednesday night to take on Wabash College. Both teams enter the game in search of their first win of the season, with the Cougars at 0-5 and the Little Giants at 0-2.
Wabash dropped their season opener to rival DePauw, but managed to score 75 points despite having only six active players. In their most recent battle with Denison, the Little Giants regressed to 63 points, shooting just 4-23 from the deep. The pair of juniors, forward Kellen Schreiber and guard Tyler Watson are averaging 26.5 and 19 PPG, respectively.
The Cougars enter the game following their two best performances of the season, thanks in large part to back-to-back 25-point performances from Jordan Matthews (Chicago, Ill.). The junior is the main catalyst for an offense that is scoring 73.5 PPG over their last two games after averaging just over 47 in their first three.
Three-point shooting serves as a big reason for the increase in scoring for the Cougars. The team shot a combined 9-54 from beyond the arc in their two games against Benedictine at the end of January. Since the calendar flipped to February, however, they have shot 18-51 from deep, doubling their opponents' three-point output in that time.
Despite the positive trends over the last couple of games, there is still room for improvement. Buena Vista outscored the Cougars 27-13 off of turnovers in Sunday's contest, and Head Coach Steve Kollar believes his team needs to be better about not beating themselves.
"The biggest thing for us as a group right now is to eliminate the things that hurt ourselves," Kollar said. "Having a defensive breakdown late because of a lack of communication or unforced turnovers that lead to easy baskets. We are not only having to fight against the other team, but we are having to battle ourselves when we make those mistakes."
Wednesday's game is the first of four in eight days for CUC. It provides the team an opportunity to change the trajectory of their season, which Kollar believes they can do by finding consistency and rhythm on both ends of the floor.
"We need to continue to compete at a high level like we are and get our execution up to speed with our effort," Kollar said. "That is when we will see these results change in our favor. I love our passion and enthusiasm and how we are staying connected despite the challenges. This is crucial towards taking that next step as a group."
Wednesday night's game will tip-off at 7 p.m. and the stream to it can be found
here.
