LUBBOCK CHRISTIAN (10-5, 4-3 Heartland) at ARKANSAS-FORT SMTIH (12-3, 5-2 Heartland)
Saturday, January 16 at 7 p.m.
Fort Smith, Ark. (Stubblefield Center)

History between the squads
Lubbock Christian and Arkansas-Fort Smith began their short history together during the 2013-14 season when the Chaps joined the Heartland Conference. LCU recorded the first victory, 85-82, on February 1, 2014, and continued into the following season with a 71-63 win over the Lions on January 17, 2015. UAFS holds the rights to the most recent win, a narrow 62-59 defeat of LCU on February 12, 2015.

Last meeting amongst the teams
Fort Smith, Ark. (February 12, 2015) – A season-high 18 points by Ridrell Holman was not quite enough for Lubbock Christian to overcome Arkansas-Fort Smith Thursday night at the Stubblefield Center, as the Lions clawed their way to a 72-69 win over the Chaps to make their way into five-way tie along with LCU for first place within the Heartland Conference.
Playing the entire 40 minutes of the contest, Holman connected on eight of his 14 shot attempts while leading Chap scorer A.J. Luckey, still recovering from an ankle injury suffered last week in the win against Oklahoma Christian, supplied 14 points off of the bench in 15 minutes of play.
The Lions were led by Alex Cooper's 16 points, while Youngblood recorded 14, Kenny Martin posted 14 along with a game-high 14 rebounds, and DaVaunta Thomas added 11 points.

LCU statistical rankings
Through games on January 12, the Chaps stake claim to the 17th-best defense in the nation by allowing just 66.4 points per game from their opponents. By holding their foes to 40.1 percent shooting from the field, the Chaps are 20th-best.
On the offensive end, LCU leads the conference in assist to turnover ratio (1.41), good enough for 25th in the country, while their 17.1 assists per game ranks 26th throughout Division II.

Shared scoring of the Chaps
During LCU's 15 contests of 2015-16, seven Chaps have stepped up to lead the squad in scoring. Tyler Rogers has tallied top honors six times; A.J. Luckey has on five occasions, while Isaac Cardona and Marcus Arrington did twice. Ridrell Holman, Matthew Alford and Marcos Schuster each have notched a team-high in points once.

The awakening of Arrington
Junior Marcus Arrington's numbers have dramatically improved from the 2014-15 season. This year, the Carlsbad, N.M., native has more than doubled his scoring average (4.1 to 9.5 ppg) while upping his assists average from 4.1 to 4.5 and his rebounds from 2.5 to 3.9 per game.
Arrington's marksmanship from the floor has climbed 25-percent on field goals, nearly tripled from the three-point line and gone up seven percent from the charity stripe.
In addition to tallying game-high scoring honors twice this season, the point guard has also corralled a team-high in rebounds two times along with a squad-best in assists on 10 occasions.

Fouls, free throws control contest in LCU loss
A combined 62 fouls and 82 free throws were tallied in a 69-61 Lubbock Christian University loss to Rogers State Thursday night at the Claremore Expo Center in a game where RSU mustered only a dozen field goals but recorded 41 points from the line in the Chaparral defeat.
LCU (10-5, 4-3 Heartland) also spent adequate time at the charity stripe, knocking down 23-of-31 attempts in comparison to 41-of-51 by the Hillcats, which set an RSU attempts record and tied for the fourth-most makes and the eighth-most attempts in the history of the Heartland Conference, respectively. The 41 makes is also the fourth-highest mark in a single game within NCAA Division II men's basketball this season.
A three-pointer by Hillcat J.C. Hartlzer was the turning point of the game at the 2:56 mark to give RSU (12-3, 4-3 Heartland) a 59-56 edge to retake the lead from LCU, which they had just earned for the first time two minutes prior. Two free throws by RSU's Donald Moore upped the advantage to five and the margin remained the same as the teams took turns at the line until another pair by Hartlzer put the Hillcats in front 66-59 with 37 seconds left to play. Marcus Arrington cut the deficit to five seven ticks later on two freebies, but the Chaps were unable to score again as RSU made another pair of free throws in the final seconds.
RSU's Travis Hester and Moore opened up the Hillcat offense with back-to-back threes as the Chaps got on the board with two free throws and a score in the paint by Isaac Cardona along with a layup by Matthew Alford for a 6-6 ballgame. The Hillcats steadily outscored LCU 14-6 to extend the lead to 20-12 midway through the first half before a three-point play by Scout Teal and a single free throw by Tyler Rogers brought the Chaps to within four.
A foul shot by Johnathon Buckley of RSU gave the Hillcats a double-digit lead, but six Chap free throws and a pair of field goals pulled LCU to within 33-31 with 1:25 to go before the half. A layup and two shots from the line extended RSU's back to six with 43 seconds until intermission. A layup by Alford at the buzzer originally counted but was then waived off after the officials viewed the monitor allowing RSU to secure their six-point cushion at the break.
The Hillcats again led by 10 following two Johnson free throws three minutes into the second half before a midrange jumper by Teal, two foul shots by Rogers and a three-pointer from the left wing by Arrington drew the Chaps closer at 43-40 with 13:36 on the clock. Five straight points by Luckey handed LCU their first lead of the evening at 49-48 with 7:14 to play. Two jumpers in the lane by Luckey and a layup by Cardona put the Chaps up 56-52 before the lead was relinquished on two Moore shots from the foul line and Hartzler's dagger three-pointer.
For LCU, Arrington scored a team-high 13 points, Luckey recorded 12 and Rogers added 11.
For RSU, Hartzler totaled a game-high 20 points, Moore had 18 and Johnson contributed 14.