The Northwestern Wildcats have hit what they hope is a soft part of their schedule, as they take on the Central Connecticut St. Blue Devils at home on Saturday. The Blue Devils actually sport the 30th-ranked offense in points per game (79.1), but are just the 112th ranked team when it comes to field goal percentage (45.2%). They are largely a three-man team, as Ken Horton, Kyle Vinales and Robby Ptacek all average more than 19 points per game, but no other player on the team even breaks the 5 points per game threshold. The Wildcats would do well to force action to go through those lesser teammates.
As for the Wildcats, they boast the 14th highest assists per game total in the nation (17.2), and are led by John Shurna and Drew Crawford, who average 19.0 and 17.2 points per game, respectively. SB Nation's Northwestern Wildcats blog, Sippin' On Purple, has an interesting storyline to pay attention to during this matchup:
John Shurna's point total: It's not a question of whether he'll score a lot, but more whether he'll play long enough to score a lot. I'm keeping an eye on his scoring total considering he needs to average roughly 17 a game in order to become Northwestern's all-time leading scorer by the end of his career if Northwestern were to lose in the first round of the B1G tournament and not make a postseason tournament. Him getting pulled after about three minutes against Mississippi Valley State and struggling against Baylor hurt him in that category, but he dropped 20 against Texas Southern. NU fans want to see him hit the pine early after seeing him get hurt last year against Mount St. Mary's and not playing up to speed for a while, but it would be nice to see him score.
Here is all the information you need to find this matchup:
Game date, time: 1:00 p.m. CST, Saturday, Dec. 17th, 2011
Location: Welsh-Ryan Arena, Evanston, IL
TV channel: NUsports.com (Wildcats All-Access)
Radio: WGN 720 AM and wgnradio.com; Dave Eanet and Bob Hildebrand on play-by-play
Stay tuned to SB Nation Chicago for all the latest. More information on the Wildcats is available at Sippin' On Purple. For other news and notes from around college basketball, visit SB Nation's college basketball news hub.