Utah Valley (16-8, 5-4) vs. Texas Rio Grande Valley (15-12, 7-4)
UTRGV Fieldhouse, Edinburg, Texas; Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Utah Valley looks for its 14th straight win in the head-to-head series over UTRGV. Utah Valley has won by an average of 16 points in its last 13 wins over the Vaqueros. Texas Rio Grande Valley's last win in the series came on Jan. 19, 2013, a 62-60 win.
SAVVY VETERANS: Both of these teams have relied heavily on their seniors this year. Terry Winn III, Tyson Smith and Jordan Jackson have collectively scored 44 percent of Texas Rio Grande Valley's points this season and 49 percent of the team's points over its last five games. For Utah Valley, Jake Toolson, Conner Toolson, Baylee Steele and Ben Nakwaasah have collectively accounted for 58 percent of all Utah Valley scoring.
STEPPING IT UP: The Vaqueros have scored 69.6 points per game and allowed 65.5 points per game against Western Athletic opponents. Those are both improvements over the 75.7 points scored and 69.5 points given up to non-conference foes.
CREATING OFFENSE: Javon Levi has been directly responsible for 48 percent of all Texas Rio Grande Valley field goals over the last five games. Levi has 16 field goals and 42 assists in those games.
UNDEFEATED WHEN: The Vaqueros are 5-0 when they turn the ball over 10 times or fewer and 10-12 when they exceed 10 turnovers. The Wolverines are 10-0 when the team records at least seven steals and 6-8 when falling short of that total.
LONG-RANGE THREAT: Utah Valley's C. Toolson has attempted 124 3-pointers and has connected on 34.7 percent of them.
GETTING DEFENSIVE: The disruptive Texas Rio Grande Valley defense has forced opponents to turn the ball over on 25.8 percent of all possessions, the second-best rate among Division I teams. Utah Valley has a forced-turnover percentage of only 17.3 percent through 24 games (ranking the Wolverines 293rd).
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This was generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com
