CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – CU men's basketball will return to action this Friday as they travel to Columbia, Ky. to face Carver College in the Lindsey Wilson Classic.
 
The Tigers and Cougars will meet Friday night at the Biggers Sports Center at 9 p.m. ET as CU will be playing their first game away from the Powell Athletic Center since Nov. 10.
 
The game can be heard on the CU Sports Network on 88.7 FM The Tiger as the voice of the Tigers, Matt Payton, will bring you the action.
 
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.
  
LAST TIME OUT
Last Saturday, CU won their 11th-straight game to start the season as they defeated Central Penn 103-62. Jacob King and Stephaun Adams led the way for the Tigers with 19 points with Hagen Tyler right behind at 18 points on the night. The CU bench had one of its better games of the season so far as they scored 35 as a unit led by 12 from Joan Duran and a career-high 11 from Calvin Fletcher.
 
SCOUTING CARVER
Carver College is an NCCAA member school as they are winless on the season at 0-13. They rank among the bottom of the NCCAA in many key categories as they score only 55.3 points per game. Their leading scorer is Jalan Strong is leading the team in scoring with 13.8 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 five more wins. Vernon trails Lou Cunningham (335), Keith Adkins (322) and Travis Ford (54) at the moment for all-time wins.
 
SEASON OPENING STREAK
CU has started the 2018-19 season on a 11-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.
 
CATEGORY LEADERS
The Tigers are top-five in the NAIA in eight different categories including leading the country in three-point field goals made with 130. CU is also third in total assists, fourth in points per game (99.1), assist to turnover ratio (1.5) and three-point field goal percentage (42.5%), as well as fifth in total points scored (1090), defensive rebounds per game (33.7) and three-point field goals per game (11.8).
 
CU is second in the Mid-South Conference in scoring average and field goal percentage. They also lead the conference in three-point percentage, total rebound offense per game, assists per game and assist to turnover ratio so far in non-conference play.
 
ADAMS BACK-TO-BACK POTW
Campbellsville guard Stephaun Adams has been named Mid-South Conference Player of the Week twice this season in back-to-back weeks.
 
On Nov. 19, Adams was honored after helping the Tigers go 3-0 the week prior with wins against Alice Lloyd, Oakwood, and Philander Smith. In those three games, Adams averaged 21 points, 6.3 rebounds and 7.0 assists.
 
The following week he was named Player of the Week after CU earned wins over Berkeley and Allen. Adams averaged 23 points, 7.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists in those two Tiger wins.
 
Throughout the season, Adams has been the offensive leader for the Tigers during the 2018-19 season. His averages of 20.5 points and 5.5 assists per game lead CU in those categories and he even averages 5.5 rebounds per game as a guard. He also has the highest individual game point total for any CU player this season when he dropped 30 against Allen on Nov. 24.
 
DECEMBER COOL DOWN
Along with the lowering temperatures, the schedule will severely cool off for Campbellsville during the month of December. After their games against Carver and Simmons, the Tigers will have a stretch of 18 days without a game during Winter break when they will not play again until Dec. 29. Dec. 29 and 30 will be their last non-conference games against Xavier University of Louisiana and Freed-Hardeman University in the University of the Cumberlands Classic.
 
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 1,571 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.
 
MID-SOUTH CONFERENCE IN THE RANKINGS
Along with Campbellsville being near the top of the NAIA Coaches' Top-25 at No. 5 overall, Georgetown, Pikeville and Cumberlands remain in the top-25 but have dropped since their original placements in the preseason poll. Georgetown moved from No. 4 to No. 9, Pikeville moved from No. 8 to No. 16 and Cumberlands moved from No. 16 to No. 20. Also at the start of the season, Lindsey Wilson was ranked No. 25 but has now fallen out of the top-25 and not even receiving votes.
 
UP NEXT
The Tigers will face Simmons College of Kentucky at the Powell Athletic Center next Monday as part of a double-header with Lady Tiger basketball. The women's game will begin at 4 p.m. ET with the men's game to follow at around 6 p.m. ET.