BOSTON—The Northeastern men's basketball team will travel to New Britain, Conn., on Friday for an 8 p.m. showdown with the Blue Devils of Central Connecticut. The game will be the 11th meeting between the two programs, with the Bostonians holding an 8-2 advantage.
After matching a program record for wins in the month of November, NU has been snakebitten of late, losing five straight games by an average of just 5.0 points.
Friday's game will be the 100th career game for NU co-captain
Joel Smith. The senior sharpshooter is just two points shy of becoming the 31st player in school history to register 1,000 career points.
Fans can catch the action live on WRBB (104.9 FM and
WRBBsports.com), with Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Coray Runge on the call. A live stream and live stats are available online at
http://www.ccsubluedevils.com.
Storylines
> Northeastern and Central Connecticut will meet on Friday for the 11th time in series history; the Huskies lead the all-time series, 8-2, and won the first-ever meeting (1967) and the most recent meeting (2005)
> Senior co-captain
Jonathan Lee returned to action on Tuesday for the first time this season after being sidelined by a preseason foot injury; Lee scored 19 points on 58 percent shooting and had five assists
> Senior co-captain
Joel Smith is just two points shy of becoming the 31st player in Northeastern history to register 1,000 career points; he tallied a game-high 22 points on Tuesday to bring his career total to 998
> Tuesday's game against Asheville was the 99th game of
Joel Smith's career; the Leander, Texas, native has appeared in 77 straight games and made 56 consecutive starts; he has played in all but six games since arriving on Huntington Avenue in 2009
>
Reggie Spencer is shooting a CAA-best 60.5 percent (46-76) from the floor; Spencer's current mark would rank him 17th nationally, just behind Indiana's Cody Zeller (60.7)
Scouting the teams
NORTHEASTERN
Northeastern's highly-touted senior backcourt tandem of
Jonathan Lee and
Joel Smith was reunited on Tuesday for the first time this season. Smith, the team's leading scorer over the first nine games, tallied a game-high 22 points in the outing, while Lee registered 19 points in his first game back from a preseason foot injury. The 41 combined point total was the highest for the duo since collecting 46 in a win over George Mason on Feb. 22 last season. Lee (19.0 ppg) and Smith (16.9 ppg) lead NU in scoring. Sophomores
Quincy Ford (12.6 ppg) and
Reggie Spencer (11.5 ppg) also average in double figures. Ford (7.0 rpg) and Spencer (6.7 rpg) lead the team in rebounding.
CENTRAL CONNECTICUT
Central Connecticut enters Friday's game at 4-4 after a 12-day break from competition. The Blue Devils lost at No. 1 Indiana, 100-69, in their last outing on Dec. 8. Matt Hunter torched the top-ranked Hoosiers for a career-high 40 points, matching an Assembly Hall record for points by an opposing player. The feat earned him NEC Player of the Week honors. Hunter is second on the team in scoring (19.9 ppg), behind only Kyle Vinales (23.5 ppg), who ranks in the top-five in the nation in scoring average. Hunter leads the team in rebounding (7.6 rpg) and has been solid from the free-throw line, connecting on 91 percent of his attempts (39-43). Impressively, Vinales is averaging better than 40 minutes per game (40.2). He has played 322 of a possible 330 minutes this season.
Welcome back, Jon
Senior co-captain
Jonathan Lee returned to the lineup for the first time this season on Tuesday against UNC Asheville. Lee, who missed the first nine games of the season with a foot injury suffered in preseason practice, wasted little time reasserting himself as one of the CAA's premier point guards. The Flint, Mich., native scored 19 points on 58 percent shooting, handed out five assists and logged 31 minutes of playing time.
1,000-point watch
Senior co-captains
Jonathan Lee and
Joel Smith are both on pace to eclipse the 1,000-point plateau this season. They would become the 31st and 32nd players in program history to record 1,000 points. Smith scored a game-high 22 points on Tuesday against UNC Asheville and is now just two-points shy of reaching the milestone mark.
Smith and Lee point watch
Joel Smith 99 games 998 points
Jonathan Lee 75 games 849 points
Smith set for 100th career appearance
Tuesday's game against Asheville was the 99th game of
Joel Smith's career. The Leander, Texas, native has appeared in 77 straight games, dating back to Feb. 23, 2010, and made 56 consecutive starts, dating to Jan. 15, 2011. He has played in all but six games since arriving on Huntington Avenue in 2009, with all six missed games coming in his freshman season.
Shooting star
Sophomore standout
Reggie Spencer currently leads the CAA in field goal percentage, making a remarkable 60.5 percent (46-76) of his attempts. Spencer's current mark would rank him 17th nationally, just behind Indiana's Cody Zeller (60.7). (The NCAA requires a minimum average of five made field goals per game to be ranked. At the time of the last NCAA ranking, Spencer averaged 4.9 makes per game.) The forward from Tuscaloosa, Ala., scored a team-high 16 points against La Salle and has scored in double figures in seven of 10 games this season.
All-time record on this date
The Huskies are 5-3 all-time in games played on Dec. 21, including wins in their two most recent outings on that date.
Huskies on Dec. 21
12/21/56 Harvard 66-60, W
12/21/74 at Pennsylvania 72-107, L
12/21/91 at Niagara 75-71, W
12/21/92 McNeese State (CFT) 78-72, W
12/21/94 New Orleans (UNO) 70-77, L
12/21/96 Rider 70-76, L
12/21/02 Sacred Heart (SJ) 91-74, W
12/21/04 at Stony Brook 75-69, W
Oh, so close
After racing out to a 4-1 start and matching the program record for wins in the month of November, Northeastern has stumbled, losing five straight. The Huskies, though, are mere points away from a dramatically different record. The five losses have been by an average margin of just 5.0 points, with four of the five being by six points or fewer.
Double is trouble, but twice as nice
Sophomore standouts
Quincy Ford and
Reggie Spencer posted back-to-back double-double performances earlier this season. Ford picked up his third career double-double in the outing against Massachusetts, collecting 14 points and 10 rebounds. Spencer's third career double-double came in the game against Maine, where he posted 16 points and 10 rebounds. Interestingly, Spencer's numbers matched the totals in his first career double-double performance, when he contributed 16 and 10 in his first-ever collegiate game, an 82-74 victory over Boston University on Nov. 11, 2011.
The Marvelous Marshavelski
After sitting out the 2011-12 season due to injury, redshirt junior
Dinko Marshavelski single-handedly ignited a 7-0 Huskies run off the bench against Massachusetts at Matthews Arena on Dec. 4. The 6-11 forward set a then-season-high scoring mark, and came one rebound shy of tying his season-high on the boards. In the following contest against La Salle, he had a double-figure performance, scoring a season-high 10 points, in his first start of the season.
November reign
Northeastern tied a program record for wins in the month of November, collecting four Ws. The Huskies defeated Boston University (65-64), Princeton (67-66), UC Riverside (61-52) and Belmont (74-71) all before the calendar turned to December.
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Up next
Northeastern will step away from competition for seven days over the holiday break before traveling to Birmingham, Ala., for its final non-conference game of the season. The Huskies will visit the UAB Blazers on Saturday, Dec. 29, at 2 p.m. It will be the first-ever meeting between the programs.
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