ASHLAND – The Southern Oregon University men's basketball team does not get to redeem its No. 3 ranking for a couple of cupcakes to kick off the Cascade Conference season.

Quite the contrary, in fact. The Raiders (9-1 overall) will play two teams with championship aspirations of their own this weekend at Bob Riehm Arena – Friday against 13^th-ranked Concordia (7-1), which is the highest-scoring team in the country, and Saturday against Warner Pacific (4-6), which was picked second behind SOU in the CCC preseason poll. Both games are slated for 7:30 p.m. starts.

"These seem like awfully big games for this early," Raiders head coach Brian McDermott said. "An 18-game grind in the league isn't going to be won or lost right now, but two wins could sure get you off to a good start."

Pay-per-view and live stats will be available at the SOU Athletics Portal. Fans are encouraged to wear red to Friday's game for a "RAIDER RED OUT" against Concordia.

The Raiders have won seven straight, squeezing four triumphs into a seven-day stretch that ended with Monday's 81-59 trouncing of Simpson. Senior forward David Sturner (Philomath, Ore./Philomath) recorded double-doubles in each of those games and junior forward Eric Thompson (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) is averaging 24.3 points over the last three and 20.6 for the season.

Sturner and Thompson aren't the only ones doing damage offensively, however. Eight of SOU's top nine point-scorers are shooting over 50 percent and the Raiders are second in the nation in assists per game (23.8), led by Jeff Bush (West Linn, Ore./West Linn) (7.8) and Tim Weber (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) (5.3). The Raiders are also holding opponents to a 37.6-percent clip from the field.

"We're still not as good offensively as I would hope to be, but we're more consistent about what we're doing," McDermott said. "The biggest difference between this year and last year is that there are fewer times when we're not playing up to our abilities, and I think we've improved a great deal in the last three weeks defensively."


CONCORDIA vs. SOU

Concordia might be the only team in the conference more explosive, and with a more dominant inside presence, than Southern Oregon. The Cavaliers lead the nation in points per game (104.4) and are third in field-goal percentage (55.0) behind CCC preseason player-of-the-year Adam Herman – a 6-foot-6 senior forward who is living up to his billing and then some at 27.1 points per game and a field-goal percentage of 75.5.

The Cavs got the attention of the NAIA in a Nov. 5 exhibition at Oregon State, leading the Beavers until the latter part of the second half in a 104-94 loss. They were included in Tuesday's NAIA Top 25 poll for the first time since the 2003-04 season.

"They're just very, very difficult to guard," McDermott said. "They have a lot of different pieces – one of the best post players in the country, a number of good athletes and a few shooters – so there are a lot of little challenges for us."

A shootout broke out between SOU and Concordia during the first round of the conference tournament in Ashland last season, when Kyle Tedder (Coos Bay, Ore./Marshfield) scored all 33 of his points in the second half of a 100-88 Raider win. They split a couple of single-digit games in the regular season as both teams won on the road.

Concordia head coach Brad Barbarick, in his 20^th season, has matched up with McDermott 35 times since 1996. SOU has won 19 of those games, including four of the last five.


WARNER PACIFIC vs. SOU

There is plenty of history between the Knights and Raiders, too – the most recent installment being a 67-64 Knights win over SOU in the conference tournament's championship game last February. The Raiders defeated WPC in Ashland during the regular season, 97-82, but prior to that the Knights won three straight in the series by a total of 11 points with two overtimes.

After a challenging preseason schedule, the Knights are out of the NAIA rankings for the first time in over two years. But they still have five players averaging double figures – led by Ryan Parks (13.9), who made 11 3-pointers against Multnomah last week, and preseason all-conference pick Doug Thomas (14.8) – and their zone defense is still holding opponents to 40.4-percent shooting.

"They present a whole different challenge because they'll play 40 minutes of that zone," McDermott said. "They're the most unique defensive team we'll see, and they're long, they get into passing lanes and they make really good adjustments."

In the Raiders' win against WPC last season, they made six straight 3-pointers at one point and 16 of 28 for the game against that zone. In their losses, they shot 26.8 percent from downtown (15-for-56).