HELENA, Mont. – The Carroll College men's basketball team hasn't lost a game in over a month. The Carroll defense is an easy explanation for the surge. During the eight-game stretch, five of which came on the road, the Saints have allowed an average of 58 points and no team has scored more than 72.
To go with the defense, the Saints remain the best shooting team in NAIA DI at 54.5 percent from the field and the third-ranked three-point shooting percentage team at 42.1 percent. Carroll rode the win streak up the polls to No. 8 in the NAIA and at 9-1 in the Frontier standings sits in sole possession of first place.
Ryan Imhoff and
Zach Taylor average a combined 34 points to lead the Saints while
Oliver Carr has been impressive lately, the junior has scored in double digits in his last three games and is shooting 88.4 percent (23-26) over the past five games.
This week, the Saints kick off a road stand that includes five of the next six games starting Thursday with Montana Tech who is 1-10 in Frontier Conference play. Chris O'Neill leads the Diggers at 13 points per game.
Carroll then plays host to Lewis-Clark, owners of the second-longest winning streak in the conference at four games.
The Warriors' last lost came in a one-point setback to the Saints on Jan. 14 in Lewiston. Doug McDaniel leads LCSC with 18.48 points per game and five other Warriors average 9.0 PPG or more.
Carroll is excited to be back in front of the home crowd but head coach Carson Cunningham doesn't want to his players to become complacent. Every Frontier Conference tilt is tough.
"It's nice to have a stretch of home games, but they don't just hand teams wins for being at home," Cunningham said. "You've got to go out and earn 'em. Our goal is to maintain a high level of intensity on both ends, especially bringing it on defense. All Frontier games are battles. Mount up time."
Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m. at the PE Center and will be broadcast on 94.9 FM ESPN Montana Radio. A live video stream will be available via the Carroll youtube channel and live stats will be available via Dakstats.
