Men's Basketball To Wrap Homestand On Monday vs Nicholls

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NEW ORLEANS – When the University of New Orleans men's basketball team wraps up its three-game homestand on Monday, Feb. 1, the Privateers will look to do the same thing it did in each of its previous two contests in Lakefront Arena when they take on Southland Conference foe Nicholls at 7 p.m.

After getting off to a rough start in league play, UNO is creeping back into the pack courtesy of a pair of home wins prior to the scheduled showdown against the Colonels. The Privateers rallied from an 11-point, second-half deficit to post a 94-83 win over Central Arkansas last Monday before surging in the second half to hand McNeese State a 76-64 defeat on Saturday.

"This is a huge opportunity for us to finish off a very important three-game homestand," UNO head coach Mark Slessinger said. "They're a very talented offensive team and they execute their offensive system as well as anybody in our league. They're also a team that we lost to two out of three times last year. We beat them in the Southland Conference Tournament but we lost to them two out of three times. We know that and that's very heavy on our team's mind. We need to get off to a good start and finish this thing off well. We need to keep getting better at the things that are positives for us and fix things like the turnovers and shooting free throws better. We just need to keep executing."

New Orleans enters Monday's matchup 7-12 on the year and 3-5 in Southland Conference action. As a team, the Privateers are averaging 73.2 points, 38.5 rebounds, 14.0 assists, 8.5 steals and 2.9 blocks per game.

Junior guard Christavious Gill leads a balanced UNO offense with 13.3 points per game while junior forward Erik Thomas, senior forward Kevin Hill and junior point guard Nate Frye follow with respective scoring averages of 10.8, 10.0 and 9.8. Thomas paces the team with 7.4 rebounds per game and sophomore forward Travin Thibodeaux headlines the defense with 0.7 blocked shot per outing. Frye leads the Privateers with 3.4 assists per game and Gill has a team-best 2.0 steals-per-contest average.

New Orleans is connecting at a .411 clip from the field, hitting 469-of-1142 shots from the floor and 99-of-288 tries from beyond the 3-point arc (.345), while allowing opponents to shoot .434 overall (473-of-1090) and .328 from 3-point land (134-of-408). Privateer foes are averaging 74.6 points, 38.6 rebounds, 14.3 assists, 8.0 steals and 4.9 blocks so far in 2015-16.

"We knew the offense would come," Slessinger added. "It just didn't come as fast as any of us would have liked. A lot of credit goes to my staff. They kept grinding and working until we could make a couple of tweaks to really open some stuff up and give us other opportunities to get some more baskets. I'm really happy with that and I'm really lucky to have good guys who have worked their tails off."

Nicholls comes to town 5-17 on the year, 1-7 in Southland Conference play and looking to snap a six-game losing skid dating back to a 78-69 defeat at Houston Baptist on Jan. 13.

As a team, the Colonels are averaging 67.6 points, 32.6 rebounds, 13.1 assists, 6.4 steals and 3.9 blocks per game. JaDante Frye is one of two Nicholls players to average double figures offensively, leading the team with a 15.0 point-per-game clip, while T.J. Carpenter follows at 12.8, Liam Thomas chips in with 8.7 and Johnathan Bell adds 8.0 points per outing. Frye and Carpenter share team-high rebound honors with 5.4 boards per game each, and Bell paces the squad with 2.0 blocked shots per contest. Carpenter also leads the team with 2.8 assists per outing and Shane Rillieux headlines the defense with 1.3 steals per outing.

Nicholls is hitting 40.7 percent of its shots from the field, connecting on 505-of-1242 field goal attempts, including a 152-of-493 showing from beyond the 3-point line (.308). The Colonels' defense has allowed opponents to post a 47.3 shooting percentage (639-of-1351) and a 33.6 clip from 3-point land (151-of-449). Nicholls opponents are averaging 80.2 points, 40.6 rebounds, 16.3 assists, 8.1 steals and 4.1 blocks per game.

Monday's game between New Orleans and Nicholls marks the 24th meeting between the two teams on the hardwood and the Privateers hold a 15-8 advantage in the all-time series. UNO is 2-3 against the Colonels since joining the Southland Conference for the 2013-14 season, including an 82-73 in the 2015 SLC Tournaement last March 11 in Katy, Texas.

The home court has been a true advantage for New Orleans when playing Nicholls as the Privateers are 8-2 in the Crescent City with a 4-1 mark against the Colonels in Lakefront Arena, a 3-1 record in the Human Performance Center and 1-0 in the Superdome. Prior to last season's Southland Conference Tournament contest, UNO twice fell to Nicholls, dropping a 67-55 decision in Thibodeaux and an 89-79 contest in Lakefront Arena.

Following the game against the Colonels, UNO returns to action on Saturday, Feb. 6, when the Privateers travel to Conway, Arkansas, to take on Central Arkansas. The game against the Bears marks the start of a tough stretch for New Orleans as six of its next seven games will be road contests with the lone home game being a Feb. 17 showdown against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Tickets to that games and future Privateer sporting events can be purchased by clicking HERE or by calling the UNO Athletics Ticket Office at (504) 280-GAME (4263).