Monmouth (6-21 SU, 11-16 ATS) travels to Boston to take on Northeastern (8-17 SU, 9-16 ATS) on Thursday night at 7pmET from Matthews Arena.
The Hawks have won five of their last six games to improve from last place in the CAA to tied with four teams at 5-9. Northeastern is now second-to-last at 4-10. This is the first meeting between these teams in the CAA.
When Monmouth opened their first season in the CAA, they didn't exactly hit the ground running. They opened with eight straight losses until finally beating NC A&T on Jan. 28, 79-64. They wound up winning four straight, beating teams including Delaware and Drexel at home. Their only loss in the month of February came against Hofstra by 29. But they bounce back on Monday with another win over the Aggies of North Carolina A&T 85-71. Klemen Vuga scored a career-high 29 points on 10-of-16 shooting, while Jack Collins added 22 on 5-of-11 from three-point range to lead the Hawks, who shot 51% from the field (6-15 3pt).
“Tonight, we just tried to focus on playing better defense and competing. It's been a rough couple of days so I'm glad by kids responded today. We took better care of the ball and I thought we just competed,” said head coach King Rice after the game on MonmouthHawks.com.
This is quite the turnaround for King Rice's club, which consists of mostly freshmen and sophomores. Forward Myles Foster is one of the most experienced players as a junior, who averages 12.2 points and 6.6 rebounds to lead Monmouth. Collins, a 6-5 freshman guard, averages 10 points and 4.1 rebounds on 34.6% shooting.
Monmouth is the worst three-point shooting team in the league and one of the worst in the nation at 27.5% and they also rank last in three-point defense in the CAA (37.7%). They also rank 12th in rebounding margin (-4.89). They rank 12th in field goal defense (46.3%) and 12th in field goal percentage (39.6%).
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