AMCC Men's Basketball Game of the Week:
La Roche University @ Penn State Behrend
Saturday, January 11 at 2:00 p.m.
Live Stats | Video
The Penn State Behrend men’s basketball team will host the La Roche Redhawks in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) Game of the Week on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m.
Behrend completes its three-game homestand with the Redhawks in the Game of the Week. The Lions extended its win streak to five straight on Wednesday when they defeated Pitt-Bradford 78-47. Junior guard Mitchell King led Behrend against the Panthers with a career-high 16 points. Sophomore forward PJ Gourley also added 16 points and junior forward Nolan Nuara had a season-best eight rebounds. Sophomore Trent Walker had a career-best eight points on the night. The Lions are 8-2 in their last 10 contests. Behrend leads the AMCC in field-goal percentage (49.3) and has given up the least amount of points (777).
La Roche University, the 2019-20 preseason favorites to win the AMCC, have opened conference play this season with a 7-0 record, winning all seven games by at least 11 points. The Redhawks have won 27 straight regular season conference games dating back to the 2017-18 season. Against the conference, LRU averages an AMCC-best 90.0 points per game while their opponents have averaged 71.3 points per game. La Roche has shot very efficiently in all seven conference games, knocking down 51% (1st in AMCC) of their attempts from the field. Junior forward Tyler Frederick has been on a tear as of late, winning back-to-back AMCC Athlete of the Week honors (12/23 & 1/6) and becoming just the second student-athlete in the conference this season and the first Redhawk since 2015 to be named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) National Player of the Week (1/7). Frederick has notched five straight double-doubles and currently leads the AMCC in points per game (20.8) and rebounds per game (12.2). His rebounds per game mark ranks 8th in D-III. Three other Redhawks rank in the top 20 in the AMCC in points per game (Kennedy Smith: 18.9, 3rd | Austin Hannes: 15.1, 11th | Darius Lawrence: 13.7, 19th). Hannes, LRU’s leading three-pointer shooter, has knocked down 33 triples this season (2nd most in AMCC) while Smith ranks T-2nd in the conference in 3-PT% (49%).
Series History:
* This contest is a rematch of the 2019 AMCC Championship game
* Both teams have met in the title game the last two seasons
* La Roche swept the Lions last year during the regular season
* Behrend won the AMCC Championship over the Redhawks, 67-65
* The Lions lead the all-time series 46-29, dating back to the 1977-78 season