Central Connecticut (11-14, 5-7) vs. Wagner (11-12, 6-6)
Spiro Sports Center, Staten Island, New York; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Wagner looks for its 10th straight win in the head-to-head series over Central Connecticut. In its last nine wins against the Blue Devils, Wagner has won by an average of 18 points. Central Connecticut's last win in the series came on Jan. 24, 2015, a 53-50 victory.
VETERAN PRESENCE: Senior leadership has been on display for both of these teams. Romone Saunders, Elijah Davis, AJ Sumbry and Devin Liggeons have combined to account for 64 percent of Wagner's scoring this season including 57 percent of the team's points over its last five games. For Central Connecticut, Tyler Kohl, Joe Hugley and Deion Bute have combined to score 49 percent of the team's points this season, including 67 percent of all Blue Devils points over their last five.
CLAMPING DOWN: The Seahawks have given up just 64.3 points per game to NEC opponents so far, an improvement from the 74.2 per game they allowed to non-conference foes.
SPARKING THE OFFENSE: Kohl has been directly responsible for 51 percent of all Central Connecticut field goals over the last three games. Kohl has 23 field goals and 16 assists in those games.
WINLESS WHEN: The Blue Devils are 0-8 when they score 63 points or fewer and 11-6 when they exceed 63 points. The Seahawks are 0-9 when they fail to score more than 60 points and 11-3 on the season, otherwise.
UNDEFEATED WHEN: Central Connecticut is a perfect 7-0 when its defense holds opponents to a field goal percentage of 40 percent or less. The Blue Devils are 4-14 when allowing opponents to shoot any better than that.
DID YOU KNOW: Wagner has made 8.1 3-pointers per game as a team this year, which is second-best among NEC teams.
———
For more AP college basketball coverage: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and http://twitter.com/AP—Top25
———
This was generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com
