STEVENS POINT, Wis. – The ninth-ranked UW-Stevens Point men's basketball team travels to Naperville to face North Central (Ill.) on Wednesday evening before hosting Lawrence for Youth/Honor America day on Saturday afternoon.

THE BASICS
Who: No. 9 UW-Stevens Point (3-2) at North Central (2-3)
When: Wednesday, Dec. 9 – 7 p.m.
Where: Naperville, Ill. – Gregory Arena

Who: Lawrence (3-3) at No. 9 UW-Stevens Point (3-2)
When: Saturday, Dec. 12 – 3 p.m.
Where: Stevens Point, Wis. – Bennett Court at Quandt Fieldhouse

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YOUTH/HONOR AMERICA DAY
Saturday will be the Pointers' 15th annual Youth/Honor America Day at Bennett Court at Quandt Fieldhouse. Children 13 and under will receive free admission to the game with each paying adult. The first 500 children will also receive a miniature American flag and children will be eligible for a drawing to sit on the bench during the game. Five names will be drawn at 2:30 p.m. and announced prior to tip-off and those five kids will receive a t-shirt, team photo, have their names announced during player introductions and will be able to sit on the team's bench during the game.At halftime, 20 names will be drawn to win purple and gold autographed basketballs sponsored by Polito's.

The UWSP ROTC Color Guard and the Boy Scouts & Club Scouts of America will present the colors for the National Anthem, which will be sung by a children's choir from the St. Paul Lutheran Grade School.

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LAST TIME OUT
UW-Stevens Point got out to a quick 8-3 lead but top-ranked Augustana (Ill.) recovered and went on to shoot 57.4 percent to defeat the Pointers 81-58 at the Carver Center on Saturday night. The Pointers made their first four shots to lead 8-3 but the Vikings took an 11-10 lead as part of a 13-0 run and did not look back.

Sean McGann (Baraboo, WI/Baraboo) sparked the quick start by making three straight jumpers for UW-Stevens Point and he scored 10 of UWSP's first 12 points. McGann finished with 18 points in the loss. The game was a rematch of last season's national title game, won by the Pointers 70-54, and was the first national championship game rematch since 2001-02.

BORDER BATTLE
North Central will be the second consecutive team UW-Stevens Point faces from the state of Illinois. The Pointers are 26-13 all-time against teams from Illinois. The 39 games against teams from Illinois include contests against 16 different institutions.

WIN/LOSS SPLITS
In its three wins this season, UW-Stevens Point is shooting 49.1 percent from the field, 44.2 percent from behind the arc and is averaging just 7.7 turnovers per game. In their two losses, the Pointers are shooting 41.0 percent from the floor, 19.2 percent from three-point range and are averaging 14.0 turnovers a game. UW-Stevens Point is averaging 67.7 points per game in the three wins and 57.0 points per game in the two losses.

LIVE BY THE THREE, DIE BY THE THREE
Both North Central and Lawrence are averaging over 22 three-point attempts per game in the young season. The Cardinals have attempted 114 three-pointers in five games (22.8 per game), while the Vikings have hoisted 144 threes in six games (24.0 per game). For comparison, the Pointers have attempted only 69 three-pointers in five games (13.8 per game).

IN THE POLLS
UW-Stevens Point is ranked No. 9 in the D3hoops.com Men's Top 25 poll this week and is ranked in the top 10 for the seventh consecutive poll. The Pointers have been ranked in the top 25 for 48 weeks in a row and 137 of the last 139 weeks.

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North Central enters the week 2-3 overall and is coming off a 67-66 loss at Alma on Sunday afternoon. The Scots took a 65-61 lead with 4:27 to go after a 6-0 run before the Cardinals held the hosts scoreless for more than three minutes as North Central took a 66-65 lead with 2:29 remaining. However, North Central came up empty on its final four possessions and Alma made a pair of free throws with 1:12 remaining for the final points of the game.

North Central opened the season with an 83-68 upset of No. 7 Mount Union before dropping games to No. 17 University of Chicago and Aurora. Prior to the loss to Alma, the Cardinals routed UW-Platteville 82-52 in Platteville.

Sophomore forward Alex Sorenson, who transferred from Northern Michigan this season, leads the Cardinals and ranks third in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) in scoring at 20.2 points per game and also contributes 7.0 rebounds a game. Sorenson has posted games of 27, 21 and 25 points already this season. Freshman forward Connor Raridon averages 10.2 points and 8.4 boards a game, while senior guard Jayme Moten also contributes 10.2 points a night but has scored 16 and 17 in his last two games.

North Central leads the CCIW in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.91) this season, which ranks third in the nation. The Cardinals are averaging 17.2 assists and just 9.0 turnovers per game.

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Lawrence has opened the season 3-3 through its first six games and is off in the middle of the week prior to facing UW-Stevens Point. The Vikings have won their last two games, defeating Beloit 76-72 on the road and Illinois College at home 77-67, after a three-game losing streak. Lawrence's six games have been decided by an average of 5.5 points a game and the Vikings have been outscored 447-446 this season.

On Saturday, Lawrence's Jamie Nikitas poured in a career-high 35 points in the 77-67 win over Midwest Conference (MWC) foe Illinois College. In the process, Nikitas became the 23rd player in program history to score 1,000 career points. He needed 29 points to surpass the milestone but went 13-for-19 from the floor, including 4-for-7 from behind the arc, and the 35 points surpassed the 34 he scored just three days before at Beloit.

Nikitas, a senior guard, is averaging 29.5 points per game, which ranks fourth nationally. The senior also contributes 6.5 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.3 steals a game. Nikitas is shooting 51.9 percent from the field this season and has taken over one-third (36.9 percent) of Lawrence's shots through six games. The next-highest scorer for the Vikings is sophomore guard Jeremy Stephani at 10.7 points per game.

THE COACHES
Bob Semling is in his 11th season as the head coach at UW-Stevens Point and has won four national championships with the Pointers. He led the Pointers to the 2010 and 2015 national championships as a head coach and was an assistant on the back-to-back national title teams of 2004 and 2005. Semling has a career record of 245-55 (.816), including a 134-26 mark in WIAC play. His .818 career winning percentage entering this season was the highest among active NCAA Division III coaches and ranks fourth all-time at all divisions among coaches with a minimum of 10 seasons as head coach. He is a two-time D3hoops.com and National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) National Coach of the Year (2010 and 2015) and a five-time WIAC Coach of the Year.

Now in his 12th season as the head coach at North Central, Todd Raridon has a career record of 190-109 (.635). During his tenure, the Cardinals have won two CCIW Championships, three CCIW Tournaments and have made three trips to the NCAA Tournament. Prior to coming to North Central, Raridon was the head coach at Nebraska Wesleyan University for 15 years and never experienced a losing season, while making seven NCAA Tournament appearances. His three sons Mitch, Derek and Connor have all played at North Central. Mitch is currently in his fifth season as an assistant on the staff, Derek completed a four-year career in 2013 and Connor is a freshman on this year's team.

Joel DePagter is in his ninth season as the Vikings' head coach and has a career record of 111-87 (.561). He is the only person in MWC history to be named both Player of the Year (1997) and the Coach of the Year (2009). DePagter was elevated to head coach in April 2007 after spending four seasons as an assistant at Lawrence. He led the Vikings to MWC regular season and tournament titles, as well as berths in the NCAA Tournament, in both 2008 and 2009. In doing so, DePagter became the first coach to win conference championships in his first two seasons as head coach. In his playing days, DePagter was a three-time All-MWC player at Lawrence and was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008.

SERIES NOTES
UW-Stevens Point and North Central are meeting for the third season in a row since the first-ever meeting in 2013. The teams have split the two meetings with both teams winning on the road. The top-ranked Pointers edged the Cardinals in Naperville on Dec. 31, 2013 on a Tyler Tillema jumper from the top of the key with 2.6 seconds remaining. Last season, North Central raced out to a 32-15 halftime lead and held off No. 11 UWSP 63-56.

UW-Stevens Point and Lawrence first met in 1897 in a series the Pointers currently lead 32-12. The Pointers have won the last six meetings with the Vikings since 2009. Last season, Jordan Lutz (Amherst, WI/Amherst) had 15 points and seven rebounds to lead No. 21 UWSP to a 60-49 win in Appleton, as the Pointers held the Vikings to 32.5 percent shooting.