Chicago, Il., -- The Vikings are off to a hot start this season, winning four of their first five games while facing some tough out of conference opponents. North Park Men's Basketball (4-1, 0-0) now heads into their conference schedule, taking on Carroll University and Millikin University this week. With Carroll (3-3, 0-0) up first, the Vikings look to kick off CCIW play with a win on the road as they travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin to take on the Pioneers on Wednesday.
Fresh off a big triple overtime win against (rv) University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, North Park hopes to carry that momentum into this week's games. Guard Kolden Vanlandingham is coming off a career game (39 point and 10 assists) that earned him a CCIW Player of the Week nod and a D3hoops.com National Team of the Week selection. However, their win over Stevens Point was an all around team effort with many players seeing heavy minutes of the court due to three overtime periods. Four Vikings pitched in at least 13 points last week as guard William Bates was North Park's second high scorer with 19 points, big man Julian Campbell and guard Jalen Houston both had 15 apiece, and Lazario Cornish brought a lot of energy with two emphatic dunks that added to his 13 point total. Mike Vuckovic added 8 points on 3-3 shooting and 2-2 from three while leading the Vikings in rebounds and assists with 7 and 6 respectively. A point of emphasis to take away from that game is to make sure the Vikings close the rebounding disparity, as the Vikings were out-rebounded 42-28; however, an advantage they did hold was their three-point shooting, the Vikings shooting 41.7% to Stevens Point's 20%.
For Carroll, they are coming off a 93-80 win over the Milwaukee School of Engineering where CCIW leading scorer Michael McNabb dropped 25 points and 5 rebounds to help the Pioneers to victory, with three other players scoring at least 15 points. Carroll seems to be a team that likes to get after it on the defensive end, with five players averaging at least 1 steal per game and Peyton McKenna (2.0) being third in the CCIW in steals behind Vanlandingham (2.2). As a team, they like to get out and run to create easy buckets after creating turnovers, scoring 18 points per game in transition, as well as shooting a near 40% clip from behind the arc. The Pioneers have three players shooting at least 39% from three (min. 10 three-point shot attempts this season) in Michael McNabb (47%), Peyton McKenna (40%), and Lucas Parker (39%).
Look for the Vikings to take pride in their rebounding this game, as the Pioneers have a negative rebounding margin so far this season of -5.8. The Vikings will look to run shooters off the arc to force Carroll into tough contested shots and to take care of the basketball and value possessions since the Pioneers do a fourth of their scoring damage in transition. Tip off between the Pioneers and the Vikings will be at 7pm on Wednesday, December 3rd at Carroll University.
