Improving Charlotte 49ers set to host Marshall team on a roll

Charlotte 49ers first-year men’s basketball coach Mark Price said heprefers to focus on/his team’s improvement from practice to practice and from game to game rather than on wins and losses.

The 49ers (4-13, 1-4) have shown improvement from the start of the season, pushing three of Conference USA’s best teams to the wire in recent games.

With Charlotte set to host C-USA co-leader Marshall Thursday at Halton Arena, the 49ers will face their biggest challenge of the first half of their conference schedule.

“They’re probably the hottest team in the league right now,” Price said of Marshall on Wednesday. “They’re scoring the ball at a high rate, and that’ll make it a different challenge for us. We’re going to have find a way to defend them, and at the same time score points to give ourselves a chance.”

After opening the season 0-5, the Thundering Herd (9-9, 5-0) has gone 9-4, including its best start in conference play since going 7-0 in 1996-1997 while in the Southern Conference.

Marshall has turned things around behind an offense that averages 82.2 points (25th best in the nation) and a league-best 94.8 points in conference games.

The 49ers have also improved , especially over their past three games:

▪ Charlotte took Louisiana Tech into overtime before losing 93-90 on Jan. 9.

▪ The 49ers hung with Middle Tennessee in a last-second, 73-72 loss last Thursday.

▪ Charlotte rallied from a 16-point deficit against Alabama-Birmingham on Saturday before another last-second loss, 74-72.

“Everybody’s just trying to get over the hump,” 49ers freshman guard Jon Davis said. “We’ve done a good job so far, and we’ve gotten better as the season’s progressed. Now, it’s at the point where we’re keeping ourselves in games.

“We’ve been playing a lot of young dudes, so it’s a growing thing. We knew this was going to happen, but we’re learning from it.”

Notes

▪ Center Joseph Uchebo, a 6-foot-10 senior, broke a 39-year-old team record with 57 rebounds over Charlotte’s past three games. The old mark of 55 was set by Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell in February 1977.

▪ Guard Curran Scott’s career-high 30 points against Alabama-Birmingham was the most points scored by a 49ers freshman since Clinton Hinton had 34 against Idaho on Dec. 29, 1984.

▪ Thursday’s game will feature two of Conference USA’s top rebounders in Uchebo, who is tied for the conference lead with 10.4 per game, and Marshall’s James Kelly (9.6 per game).

▪ In conference games, Uchebo has fared even better as a rebounder – he leads the league in total boards (14.0) and offensive rebounds (6.0).

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Improving Charlotte 49ers set to host Marshall team on a roll."