Storylines – vs. West Virginia Wesleyan College
In his second season at the helm of the program, Jack Meriwether's Bobcats sit at 3-4 overall and 1-3 in Mountain East Conference play to start the 2018-19 campaign. The team opened up the season with a pair of wins against West Chester and Kutztown before earning their first conference win on the road against the Wheeling Jesuit Cardinals, 78-60. West Virginia Wesleyan will look to snap a three-game losing streak, dropping contests to West Liberty, Shepherd, and Fairmont State. Junior forward Dusan Vicentic leads the team in scoring, averaging 14.6 points per game while shooting 51 percent (42-for-82) from the field. He's followed by redshirt junior guard Clay Todd and senior guard Fred Brondsted who have posted 13 ppg and 12.3 ppg, respectively. The team's rebounding leader through the first seven games is junior guard Luka Petrovic who has recorded 4.9 rebounds per game while adding 11 ppg and leads the team with 6.1 assists per game. As a team, the Bobcats are registering a -3.6 scoring margin averaging 66.7 ppg on 45 percent (172-for-381) shooting from the field. West Virginia Wesleyan has struggled on the boards, posting a -12.7 margins recording 24.7 rebounds per game. The Bobcats finished their 2017-18 season with a 7-18 overall mark, 7-11 in league play, as West Virginia Wesleyan was selected 10th in this year's preseason poll.
About UVa-Wise
UVa-Wise enters into its second conference road game of the season against the West Virginia Wesleyan Bobcats after the Cavaliers dropped its matchup against the University of Charleston Saturday afternoon, 81-73. Against the Golden Eagles, UVa-Wise struggled on the boards and in the paint as Charleston posted 50 rebounds to the Cavs 30. Charleston went for 54 points in the paint while UVa-Wise posted just 14 points inside the paint and shot 38.7 percent (24-for-62) from the field. The Cavs were led in scoring by freshman guard
Briggs Parris who had 18 points on six shots from downtown, followed by junior guard
Michal Seals who netted 17 points with eight assists. Parris' 52.7 percent (39-for74) shooting from beyond the arc leads the Mountain East Conference in three-point field goal percentage as does his 4.9 three-point field goals per game. Seals' 8.3 assists per contest place him second in both the league and nationally while also leading UVa-Wise in scoring with 19.4 points per game. Alongside Seals, three other members of the team are averaging double-digit points including Parris (16.4 ppg), freshman guard
Cameron Whiteside (11.4 ppg), and junior forward
Eric Okenchi (11.3 ppg). Okenchi's 7.8 rebounds per game lead the team while his 3.6 offensive rebounds per contest rank third in the conferenece. UVa-Wise is averaging 84.6 points to start with a +1.9 scoring margin over opponents. The Cavs are second in the league in three-point field goal percentage shooting 39.9 percent (87-for-218) as well as assists, averaging 18 per game. Blake Mellinger's squad went 1-1 against the Bobcats during the 2017-18 campaign and will meet for the first time this season as UVa-Wise seeks its first road conference win against West Virginia Wesleyan Wednesday night.
