CASCADE CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS
7 p.m. Wednesday - Northwest Christian at #23 SOU - Live Stats - Live Stream
*Regular ticket pricing applies. Season and employee passes will not be honored, as dictated by the Cascade Conference.

ASHLAND – For the second straight season, the Southern Oregon University men's basketball team risks being left out of the NAIA Championships if it doesn't defeat Northwest Christian in a Cascade Conference tournament quarterfinal game.

Last year the Raiders lost and were consequently omitted from the 32-team field. This year they'd rather not explore the worst-case scenario again.

The eight-team CCC Men's Basketball Championships presented by U.S. Bank opens at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Bob Riehm Arena with the fifth-seeded Beacons (17-10 overall, 10-8 CCC) visiting the fourth-seeded Raiders (22-8, 11-7), who will attempt to stop a five-game losing streak in the series.

This marks the third consecutive season that the Raiders have faced a possible win-or-stay-home game in the quarterfinals. They blew by Concordia in 2013 on their way to appearances in the conference tournament championship game and the NAIA Sweet 16, but last season NCU kept the Raiders home with a wire-to-wire, 86-74 upset. The win propelled the Beacons to their first CCC title game and an automatic berth in the national tournament, where they lost in the first round to Cornerstone (Mich.).

Playoff picture: Barring upsets in every other quarterfinal matchup, the Raiders will be on the road the rest of the way should they advance past Wednesday. The semifinals will be held on campus sites at 7 p.m. Saturday and the championship is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 3. The other quarterfinals feature eighth-seeded Oregon Tech (13-15, 6-12) at top-seeded College of Idaho (25-5, 14-4); No. 7 Eastern Oregon (14-14, 6-12) at No. 2 Concordia (24-5, 14-4); and No. 6 Corban (15-12, 8-10) at No. 3 Warner Pacific (24-6, 14-4). The tournament is not in bracket format, meaning the tournament is re-seeded in the semifinals with the lowest remaining seed playing the highest remaining seed.

College of Idaho, Concordia and Warner Pacific shared the CCC regular-season title, but C of I won the tiebreaker to earn one of the league's two automatic passes to the NAIA tournament. The other automatic will go to the tournament champion – unless that champion is again C of I, in which case Concordia gets it for earning the No. 2 seed.

SOU last won the conference tournament in 2005 and lost in the 2013 title tilt at Warner Pacific. If the Raiders don't earn an automatic they can still get in with an at-large bid, but they are likely to drop out of contention for one if they fall to NCU. They dropped four spots to No. 23 in this week's NAIA Division II coaches' poll following home losses to No. 10 Concordia and No. 15 Warner Pacific. Last season a quarterfinal loss sunk them to No. 26, and the final at-large was handed to Concordia, which was No. 25 at the time.

Head-to-head: The Beacons swept the regular-season series for the second straight season, winning first in buzzer-beating fashion on Jan. 2 in Eugene. After Tim Weber (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg)'s layup tied it at 64 with 12 seconds remaining, NCU's Travis Pacos drove the lane and took a jumper that rimmed out and into the hands of Jack Hackman, who threw it in from just outside the paint for the win.

NCU topped SOU 80-69 on Jan. 31 in Ashland behind Austin Kuemper's 18 points and an 8-for-16 performance from downtown, including Kyle Ferreira's 3-for-3 outing. Eric Thompson (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) had 15 points and 15 boards for the Raiders, whose bench was outscored 45-16.

The Raiders lead the all-time series, 25-21. The teams have never met in the postseason.

Quick hits:
- In six career postseason games, Eric Thompson (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) is averaging 20.7 points on 53-percent shooting with 7.5 rebounds. Thompson made 13 of 21 attempts for a season-high 33 points in Saturday's losing effort against Concordia. It was the 14^th 30-point game of his career.
- SOU shot 59 percent (30-for-51) in the loss to Concordia. It was the third time this season the Raiders have shot over 49 percent in a loss.
- Tim Weber (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) has recorded 10 or more assists in four of SOU's five games and 12 times this season, while no one else in the CCC has done it more than once. His 8.2 assists per game during conference play were three more than the next-closest individual, and he owns four of the nation's nine triple-doubles this season.
- SOU's field-goal percentage of 51.8 during CCC play led the league, but the Raiders have allowed five of their last six CCC foes to shoot 45 percent or better. Last weekend's opponents shot a combined 60 percent in the second half.
- Jordan West (Gymea Bay, Australia/Port Hacking) hasn't been held under 10 points since Nov. 29, a span of 20 games. He averaged 14.9 points on 60-percent accuracy during conference play, ranking ninth in the CCC, up from his average of 7.3 last season.
- Since being inserted into the starting lineup six games ago, Ben DeSaulnier (Philomath, Ore./Philomath) has posted 12 points a night and shot 53 percent.

About Northwest Christian: The Beacons had a chance to host this game but lost it with a 67-56 setback last Saturday at Corban. They've alternated wins and losses their last eight games, struggling to find consistency within a rotation of at least 11 players from night to night that has seen 10 players receive starts. Austin Kuemper leads a large and effective front line that out-rebounded the Raiders 19-5 on the offensive end when the teams first met. The all-conference forward, who is a transfer from University of Oregon, has averaged 19 against the Raiders in five games the last two years. Javonte Byrd has also been a popular Raider-killer, averaging 20 points when the teams have gotten together the last two seasons .The Beacons were second in the CCC in points allowed per game (66.8) and second in opponents' field-goal percentage (42.1).