Western Carolina Catamounts (14-15, 10-8 SoCon) vs. Mercer Bears (19-12, 11-7 SoCon)
Asheville, North Carolina; Saturday, 8:30 p.m. EST
BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Bears -1.5; over/under is 156.5
BOTTOM LINE: Mercer plays in the SoCon Tournament against Western Carolina.
The Bears have gone 11-7 against SoCon teams, with an 8-5 record in non-conference play. Mercer scores 83.0 points while outscoring opponents by 7.5 points per game.
The Catamounts are 10-8 against SoCon teams. Western Carolina averages 10.6 turnovers per game and is 8-5 when winning the turnover battle.
Mercer is shooting 46.4% from the field this season, 0.2 percentage points higher than the 46.2% Western Carolina allows to opponents. Western Carolina averages 78.9 points per game, 3.4 more than the 75.5 Mercer allows.
The teams square off for the third time this season. Western Carolina won the last matchup 78-74 on Feb. 26. Cord Stansberry scored 21 to help lead Western Carolina to the win, and Baraka Okojie scored 22 points for Mercer.
TOP PERFORMERS: Zaire Williams averages 2.2 made 3-pointers per game for the Bears, scoring 12.9 points while shooting 35.8% from beyond the arc. Okojie is shooting 44.0% and averaging 21.2 points over the past 10 games.
Stansberry is scoring 14.1 points per game and averaging 3.9 rebounds for the Catamounts. Tahlan Pettway is averaging 2.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Bears: 6-4, averaging 78.8 points, 31.5 rebounds, 11.8 assists, 5.5 steals and 3.3 blocks per game while shooting 45.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 75.8 points per game.
Catamounts: 7-3, averaging 81.2 points, 31.9 rebounds, 12.2 assists, 5.3 steals and 2.3 blocks per game while shooting 46.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 73.9 points.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
