CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – After 18 days away from game action, Campbellsville men's basketball will get back to the court this Saturday and Sunday to take part in the Cumberlands Classic in Williamsburg, Ky. to face Xavier University of Louisiana and Freed-Hardeman University.
 
The Tigers and Gold Rush will face of at 6 p.m. ET on Saturday with CU taking on the Lions at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday. These games will be the final two games on the non-conference schedule for Campbellsville as they will head into Mid-South Conference play at the beginning of January.
 
LAST TIME OUT
The last time the Tigers took the floor was on Dec. 10 when CU beat Simmons College of Kentucky 111-48 at the Powell Athletic Center. The game was highlighted as a career night from senior guard Hagen Tyler, who scored 37 points on 13-of-16 shooting and 8-of-11 from distance. Tyler was lights out in the first half after missing his first-two shots, he was perfect from the field including scoring 12-straight points for about three minutes early in the half as he finished with 26 in the half.
 
SCOUTING XAVIER
The Gold Rush started the season ranked No. 24 in the preseason coaches' poll but have dropped out of the poll since going 7-5 to start the season so far. Xavier averages 73.8 points-per-game while allowing 68.7 points-per-game to their opponents.
 
SCOUTING FREED-HARDEMAN
The Lions have struggled so far in the beginning of the season with a 2-9 record in their 11 games. They do boast the highest individual scoring average of a CU opponent on the weekend as Bryan Mitchell averages 17.5 points-per-game.
 
VERNON REACHES 50 WINS
Tiger men's basketball head coach Brent Vernon reached 50 career coaching wins last Saturday with CU's 103-62 win over Central Penn. Vernon, the seventh head coach in program history, is fourth in all-time wins in just his third season as head coach and will move to third with just three more wins. Vernon trails Lou Cunningham (335), Keith Adkins (322) and Travis Ford (54) at the moment for all-time wins.
 
NATION'S BEST OFFENSE
After their 111-point outburst against Simmons on Dec. 10, the Tigers raised their points-per-game average to 99.3, which is good for the best average in the NAIA. Behind a sixth ranked field goal percentage (52.7%) and a second ranked three-point shooting percentage (43.8%), CU has shown to be able to score in from multiple spots on the floor. Their scoring margin of 30.2 points also ranks third best in the country as they have only had one of their victories come by less than 22 points.
 
NATION'S BEST SHOOTER
One of the main reasons that Campbellsville has a third-ranked three-point shooting percentage in the NAIA is because of the 53.1% shooting by senior Hagen Tyler. That percentage is ranked fifth in the country but the argument can be made that he is still the best shooter in the country as he has taken a total of 96 three-point shots, which is at least 39 more than anyone with a better percentage.  Tyler has taken more threes and made more threes than all but one other player with a percentage of 50 or higher.
 
SEASON OPENING STREAK
CU has started the 2018-19 season on a 13-game winning streak. That is their longest winning streak to start a season in 20 years when they started with a streak of 19-straight in the 1998-98 season. That season, the Tigers finished 29-3 but did not make the NAIA tournament. The Tigers are one of only one of three teams that are 11-0 and one of eight teams still undefeated so far in 2018-19. CU is also the only program that is undefeated in the Mid-South Conference through the non-conference schedule.
 
NOT THE ONE-TRICK TIGERS
With all of the offensive success the Tigers can boast, CU's opponents' points-per-game has dropped to 69.2, which is 17th in the country, after their two best defensive efforts of the season. After holding Carver to 53 points, which was a season low for a CU opponent, the Tigers came back to hold Simmons to just 48 points. Of the remaining five undefeated teams in the NAIA, the Tigers are the only team of the unbeatens to be scoring over 90 points-per-game and holding their under 70 points per game.
 
ADAMS DOES IT ALL
The senior guard from the Virgin Islands, Stephaun Adams is not only the leading scorer at 21.1 points-per-game for the Tigers, he is a stat stuffer for CU on a game-to-game basis. Adams leads the team in assists (77) and assists per game (5.9) while also having the fourth highest rebounding average at (5.2), which is the best among the CU guards. On the defensive end of the floor Adams has become a master of the steal with 33 steals so far on the season for a 2.5 steals-per-game average.
 
NUMBER FIVE IN THE NATION
In the first in-season NAIA Coaches' Top-25 Poll, the Tigers were ranked No. 5 in the nation on Dec. 4. The Tigers earned 189 voting points and earned one of the nine first-place votes. The No. 5 ranking is the highest since the Tigers spent three weeks as the No. 1 program in the country during the 2014-15 season. The Tigers are 17 points out of first place, while LSU Alexandria earned eight first-place votes and is No. 1. They're followed by The Master's University, Carroll College and William Penn University as Nos. 2-4.
 
HOME GAMES ON CU SPORTS NETWORK
All Tiger basketball home games will be streamed on the CU Sports Network on campbellsvilletigers.com as well as the home games in the Mid-South Conference schedule being aired on WLCU-TV. Even if anyone won't be able to make it out to the Powell Athletic Center for CU home games, you can watch the Tigers play all of their home games for free on our athletics website. New this season on the CU Sports Network will be the inclusion of four-camera broadcasts as we attempt to bring a more in-depth, professional broadcast feel to basketball games during the 2018-19 season.
 
TYLER MOVING ON UP
Senior Guard Hagen Tyler currently has 1,624 points scored in his CU career, good for seventh place all time in program history. Hagen entered the top-10 in scoring all-time in CU history in the season opener against Kentucky Christian. He has moved up three spots since then, two spots in two games as he passed Marcio Kardosh with his 20-point game on Nov. 23 then followed it up with 21 the next night to pass Ramont Smith.
 
UP NEXT
With their weekend tilts being the last on their non-conference schedule, the Tigers will jump into Mid-South Conference play with a bang as they will face No. 9 Georgetown at Georgetown. The match-up could be between top-five teams with the next poll being released on Jan. 2 and multiple top-five teams losing in December.