OKLAHOMA CITY – The No. 3 Mid-America Christian men's basketball team is ready to close out the 2019 portion of its schedule as the Evangels will take on Science & Arts in a crucial Sooner Athletic Conference road contest at the USAO Fieldhouse in Chickasha, Okla. on Friday night. The battle of two of the top-rated team in the conference is slated for a 7:45 p.m. tip-off.
SCOUTING THE DROVERS
After being picked to finish second in the SAC and ranked No. 13 in the NAIA Top 25 preseason poll, Science & Arts is off to a rough start to the 2019-20 season as the Drovers make their way into Friday night's game with a 6-5 record and a 1-1 mark against conference competition.
USAO is coming off a 117-73 road win at Bacone College on Monday, bouncing back from a rough 93-92 overtime road loss at Randall last Saturday.
Despite the Drovers struggles thus far, Science & Arts is one of the top three-point shooting teams in the nation, ranking fourth in the NAIA at 12.3 made three-pointers per game and seventh in total three-point baskets.
Science & Arts is one of the top offensive teams in the conference, placing third in the league with a 90.7 points per game scoring average while leading the conference in assists at 18.2 apg. However, the Drovers have struggled on the defensive end, ranking dead last in the conference by giving up 86.7 ppg and are ninth in the league in defensive field goal percentage defense at 42 percent.
The balanced Drovers lineup with four players averaging double-digit scoring is led by sophomore guard Stephon Hall. The Oklahoma City product is averaging 16.8 ppg while knocking down 44.8 percent of his three-point attempts and converting 86.1 percent from the foul line. Hall has also been an offensive generator for his teammates, leading the squad with 50 assists (5 apg). Since losing Dylan Causwell after the Cumberlands game on Nov. 9, junior guard Colen Gaynor has led the rebounding efforts at 6.8 boards per game to go along with a 15.1 ppg scoring average.
HISTORY WITH THE DROVERS
In the NAIA era, Mid-America Christian holds the edge in the series with a 15-11 record against the Drovers since the 2007-08 season and won two of three matchups last season. The two teams split the regular season contests as USAO upset the Evangels in the Gaulke Activity Center 80-77 on Jan. 8, but the Evangels got their revenge at the USAO Fieldhouse with an 80-64 victory on Feb. 5. The two teams played each other once again in the 3/6 quarterfinal matchup in the SAC Tournament on Feb. 26 as the sixth-seeded Evangels picked up yet another win in the USAO Fieldhouse by a score of 75-74, winning on Justin Bogle's tip-in with 2.7 seconds remaining.
GOLD FOR GOLDEN
Senior guard/forward Ashford Golden received MACU's first Sooner Athletic Conference Player of the Week Award of the 2019-20 season on Monday after leading the Evangels to a 90-81 come-from-behind road victory at Texas A&M-Texarkana on Tuesday, Dec. 3. The local Oklahoma City product put together his best collegiate career game with his first career double-double, scoring a career-high 26 points and ripping down a career-best 12 rebounds. Golden went 9-for-21 from the floor and scored 15 first half points. Despite scoring just 11 points in the second half, Golden was a catalyst on the offensive end, recording all four of his assists in the last 20 minutes of action.
PLAYING THE PERCENTAGES
Despite having one of its worst shooting performances of the season last week at Texas A&M-Texarkana, the Evangels continue to be one of the top shooting teams in the country. Mid-America Christian's SAC leading 95 ppg is the currently the sixth-best scoring average in the NAIA, while scoring most of its points from the floor on its nationally fifth-best shooting percentage at 52.7.
Redshirt senior forward Cedric Wright continues to play a big factor, leading the nation in field goal shooting at 78.3 percent, which continued to rise after putting together an 8-for-10 performance for 18 points last week at Texas A&M-Texarkana. Four Evangels players are shooting above 50 percent from the floor this season, including: Marvin Lowe (77.8 percent), Terrance Jones (58 percent) and Damarius Brooks (55.6 percent).
The Evangels also pose the 16th-best three-point shooting percentage in the NAIA with a trio of shooters knocking down better than 40 percent of the arc, which includes: Brooks (50 percent), D'von Moore (42.4 percent) and Dominick Ford (41.4 percent).
