ASHLAND – Saturday's Top-25 matchup against California Maritime will serve as the Southern Oregon University men's basketball team's bridge from finals week back to Cascade Conference action.

The 23rd-ranked Keelhaulers (10-3 overall) will be at Bob Riehm Arena for a 4 p.m. meeting with the No. 2 Raiders (11-1). SOU, which defeated Concordia and Warner Pacific in last weekend's CCC openers, has won nine straight for the third time in the last 25 years.

Key road contests are on deck for the Raiders, Dec. 20-21 at Eastern Oregon and College of Idaho.

The Keelhaulers, who compete in the California Pacific Conference, have dropped all four games to SOU since the teams began playing in 1998. Maritime is a program on the rise, though, as demonstrated by its first-round triumph at last year's the NAIA championships and consecutive seasons with 20-plus wins.

Four different Keelhaulers have scored at least 20 points in a game this year. Senior guard Grant Blaser averages a team-high 13.2 with over half of his shots coming from 3-point range, where he is 30-for-71. Forwards Casey Healy and Dominique Barnes average 12.4 and 10.6 points, respectively, and six players post between 3.4 and 4.5 rebounds.


Some notes on Southern Oregon:

• Jeff Bush (West Linn, Ore./West Linn) leads the NAIA in assists per game (7.4), and his career total of 406 is just 20 short of matching Scottie Silva's SOU record, which was established in 1996. His work is helping the Raiders lead the country as a team in assists (23.7) – they've recorded 20 or more 10 times in 12 games – but it's Tim Weber (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg), an off-guard, who leads the conference after two games with 17 assists. Weber had 10 against Concordia, setting a career high, and has been at seven or better in six games.

• Eric Thompson (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) was the CCC's player of the week after averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds on 15-for-23 shooting over the weekend. Thompson is enjoying his most efficient season from the field – he's up to 56.6-percent shooting compared to 44.8 through 12 games last year – but he's also shooting 88 percent from the free-throw line (44-for-50) and 50-percent from 3 (30-for-60).

• The Raiders are fifth in the country in field-goal percentage (52.4) and fifth in 3-pointers made per game (10.1). David Sturner (Philomath, Ore./Philomath) leads the team with a 60.2-percent clip from the field, averaging 16.3 points to go with 10.5 rebounds. Sturner and Thompson have cracked double figures together in all but three games.

• Concordia's 45.2-percent shooting Friday was the best mark for a Raider opponent in a month. SOU's 37.5-percent field-goal percentage defense is fourth in the country (as is its 25.0 percent from 3-point range) and opponents have been held to worse than 33 percent in four of the last six games.

• Kyle Tedder (Coos Bay, Ore./Marshfield) was 5 of his last 27 from 3-point range before going 8-for-18 last weekend with a game-high 22 points against Warner Pacific. The senior guard has made at least one 3-pointer in 44 of his last 50 games.