North Dakota State plays Denver, looks for 4th straight victory

Denver Pioneers (7-8, 0-2 Summit) at North Dakota State Bison (9-5, 1-0 Summit)

Fargo, North Dakota; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: North Dakota State comes into a matchup with Denver as winners of three consecutive games.

The Bison have gone 4-1 in home games. North Dakota State is 2-4 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 16.4 turnovers per game.

The Pioneers are 0-2 in conference matchups. Denver is 0-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.

North Dakota State averages 69.0 points, 5.4 more per game than the 63.6 Denver gives up. Denver has shot at a 38.9% rate from the field this season, 1.3 percentage points fewer than the 40.2% shooting opponents of North Dakota State have averaged.

The Bison and Pioneers match up Thursday for the first time in Summit play this season.

TOP PERFORMERS: Abby Schulte is averaging 6.5 points for the Bison.

Emma Smith is shooting 28.4% from beyond the arc with 1.8 made 3-pointers per game for the Pioneers, while averaging 11 points, 6.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.3 steals.

LAST 10 GAMES: Bison: 6-4, averaging 67.7 points, 32.9 rebounds, 13.5 assists, 7.7 steals and 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 40.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 64.4 points per game.

Pioneers: 5-5, averaging 61.8 points, 24.2 rebounds, 11.4 assists, 8.0 steals and 1.8 blocks per game while shooting 39.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 64.2 points.

___

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

The Associated Press