BY CHANCE WEEKS-WILLIAMS, Staff Reporter
On Thursday Jan. 23, rival Western Washington University Vikings will travel from Bellingham to square off against the Wildcats in Nicholson Pavilion at 7 p.m.
This will be the first time this season that the Wildcats (8-7 overall, 4-3 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) will play the Vikings (11-4, 5-2), but both teams know what is at stake when they take the court.
“Even if this was a pickup game in the spring time, Central, Western, it’s huge,” senior forward JB Pillard said.
Central has not forgotten the last time they played the Vikings, losing 82-92 last year in Ellensburg.
“It’s nice to be home at Nicholson Pavilion in front of the crowd, the bands and the fans,” Head Coach Greg Sparling said.
Central is coming back from playing two tough road games in Alaska, splitting the games with a loss to the University of Alaska 84-80 and a win against University of Alaska Anchorage 95-88. Senior Forward JB Pillard is coming off an outstanding game against Anchorage where he scored 23 points, dished out six assists and had one steal.
Senior guard Mark McLaughlin will look to have another great game as well. McLaughlin is currently the leading scorer in the GNAC averaging a whopping 26 points per game, scotingg five more points than the second leading scorer. Coming in at No. 12 on the GNAC scoring leaders list is Pillard, with an average of 14 points.
“I plan on focusing on continuing to rebound well,” Pillard said.
As a team, Central is ranked third in the conference in scoring, and to complement that impressive stat, they are also second in free throw percentage.
Although the Wildcats are 10th in the conference in total defense, they make up for it by being the second ranked team in the GNAC with 4.8 blocks per game and fifth in the GNAC with 6.6 steals per game.
“We’re playing good basketball and we are going to get better and better,” Sparling said.
Western boasts the second best offense in the conference and the fifth best scorer in the league in senior forward Austin Bragg, who averages 17 points a game.
The Vikings are stifling on defense, ranking number one in shot blocking, field goal percentage and opponent three point percentages. What sets them apart from most teams is their rebounding ability. They have out rebounded teams by an average margin of six rebounds a game. To put that into perspective the next closest team in the GNAC only has a rebounding margin of 3.5. This will be a tough match up for the Wildcats as they look to start a win streak in GNAC play.
On Saturday, the Wildcats will play another home game against Simon Fraser University. Simon Fraser has yet to win a conference game, but they will try and steal a game from the Wildcats. Even though they are winless in conference play the Wildcats will not overlook the Clan.
“At the end of the day to win the GNAC you have to win at the home court and go and pick some up on the road,” Sparling said.
Simon Fraser is in the bottom half of every statistical category excluding: blocks, assists, steals and three pointers made, where they respectively rank fourth, third, second and fourth.
Central will look to exploit their rebounding offense with Senior Center Kevin Davis who is sixth in the GNAC in rebounding.
“They are hungry for a win and we’re going to try to avoid being their first win,” Pillard said.
