WISE, Va. – UVa-Wise men's basketball begins its second three-game road trip in the month of January with a visit to Shepherd University Thursday night. Tipoff from Shepherdstown, West Virginia, is set for 7:30 p.m.
 
Storylines – at Shepherd University
The Cavs take on the Rams for the second time this month. UVa-Wise was a 78-69 winner inside the David J. Prior Convocation Center in the two teams' first meeting this season on Jan. 5. Behind a then career-high 30 points from redshirt junior forward Taiwo Badmus (London, England), the Cavs shot 52.8 percent (28-of-53) from the floor and made 42.9 percent (9-of-21) of their 3-point attempts to upend the visiting Rams. UVa-Wise outscored Shepherd 43-33 in the second half after trailing for the majority of the first half to earn its first league win of the season. The victory was the Cavs' first win against Shepherd since joining the Mountain East Conference. UVa-Wise is now 1-6 against the Rams since the 2013-14 season.
 
Shepherd currently sits in fourth place in the conference standings and has won five of its last six games. The Rams lone defeat since their Jan. 5 loss in Wise was an 86-81 home setback against second-ranked Fairmont State University. In those five wins Shepherd outscored its opponents by an average of 17 points, including a 45-point rout of West Virginia State and a 28-point romp of the University of Charleston. Perhaps the biggest victory for the Rams during that span was a very close, 78-77 road win at Notre Dame College on Jan. 16.
 
Led by ninth-year head coach Justin Namolik, Shepherd features four players who are averaging double-figure scoring. Junior guard Steffen Davis (17.2 PPG), junior forward AJ Carr (14.4 PPG), junior guard Skyler Roman (12.3 PPG) and senior guard Naim Muhammad (11.4 PPG) are all averaging over 10 points per game. Muhammad is also averaging 5.1 assists per game, good enough for fifth-best in the MEC.
 
About UVa-Wise
UVa-Wise won back-to-back games for the first time since November of 2013 with an 82-68 home win over Charleston this past Saturday. The victory followed a 98-70 road win at Concord University last Thursday. The Cavs are looking to win three in a row for the first time since the beginning of the 2013-14 season when they got off to a 4-0 start.
 
UVa-Wise's offense has really been clicking over the last three contests as the Cavs have shot 52 percent from the field and gone 37-of-73 (50 percent) from beyond the arc. Averaging 87 points and 12.3 3-pointers per game in its last three matchups, UVa-Wise has held opponents to 41 percent shooting and 75.3 points per contest.
 
Badmus, the reigning MEC Player of the Week, has averaged 28.7 points and shot 70 percent from the floor over the last three games. Redshirt sophomore forward Dimitri Sousa (São Paulo, Brazil) and Badmus have each gone 12-of-19 (63 percent) from distance over the last three contests.
 
Freshman point guard Michal Seals (Lancaster, Pa.) is third in the MEC with 5.8 assists per game, while Badmus' 22.2 points per contest is second-best in the league.
 
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