Complete Game Notes
THE GAME
North Carolina Central University hits the road for a quick two-game road trip after splitting its two-game homestand and comes into the contest .500 on the season. After eight games in MEAC play, the Eagles are 5-3 with seven contests against conference foes remaining on the slate. NCCU is 4-7 away from the Bull City this year but have won the last 2 road contests.
The NCCU Sports Network will have wall-to-wall coverage of Saturday's doubleheader, beginning at 1:45 p.m. on WRJD 1410 a.m. and at
GameCentral.
THE SERIES
NCCU and Howard University are meeting for the 61st time in program history, the first of which since the 1980 season. The Eagles and Bison met on March 1, 1980 when Howard beat NCCU 98-82 following a maroon and gray win over A&T the day prior in the MEAC Tournament. The Eagles own a 34-26 lead in the all-time series that dates all the way back to Feb. 2 , 1937 when the two schools met for the first time.
HOWARD UNIVERSITY “BISON”
Howard University enters the weekend MEAC matchup with a 4-17 record overall after winning its last two contests within league play to get the Bison out of the cellar at 2-7 in the league. Howard is led by first-year head coach Kevin Nickelberry who is taking on his second Division I coaching gig after spending time as the head coach at Hampton University from 2006 to 2009, and was also an assistant coach at other Division I schools such as Clemson University, Charlotte, and Monmouth. Nickelberry has been heralded one of the top-15 recruiters in the nation. Howard has a trio of players in the top-30 in the conference in scoring with Mike Phillips leading the way with 12.9 points a game. Phillips is 14th in the MEAC, while his teammates Dadrian Collins is 23rd in the conference averaging 11.3 points a game, and Anton Dickerson is 27th dropping in an average of 10.5 points a game. Leading scorer Phillips is sixth in the conference in rebounding at 7.7 boards a game (No. 2 in the MEAC in offensive rebounds 3.4 per game), while 6-10 center Alphonso Leary is 19th in the conference with 5.0 rebounds a game, and Collins is 20th at 4.9 boards a contest. Twenty-one games into the season Howard is dead last in the conference in scoring averaging 56.7 points a game. The Bison are at the bottom of the league in free throw percentage (60.7%) and field goal percentage (36.9%), but are second in the league in offensive rebounding.
UP NEXT
Following the conference matchup with Howard, NCCU steps out of conference play to take on the Panthers of High Point University for the fifth time in program history on Monday night at 7:00 from the Millis Center on Feb. 7. The Panthers swept the Eagles last season in two meetings with HPU winning 70-58 at home on Dec. 29, 2009, while squeaking out a 58-55 win at McDougald-McLendon Gym on Jan. 11, 2010. After that contest the Eagles will have a week before its next contest at home against Coppin State on Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m.
