KIRKLAND, Wash. - The NU basketball teams are back in action today (Dec. 30) after a well-deserved break for the Christmas holiday. The women travel to Spokane to take on Whitworth University in a 6 p.m. game while the Eagle men host Thompson Rivers from Kamloops, B.C., tonight in the NU Pavilion at 7 p.m.

The NU women face a Pirate team which is 8-0 this season and ranked 15th USA Today/WBCA Division III Coaches Poll and 17th in the D3hoops.compoll. Whitworth's KC McConnell continues to lead the Northwest Conference in scoring average (18.5 points per game) and is fourth in the NWC in three-point percentage (41.5%). As a team the Pirates remain the most dangerous three-point shooting squad in the NWC. Whitworth ranks first in the league in three-point percentage (34.9%) and in three-pointers made per game (8.5). The Bucs also lead the conference in team free throw percentage with an 82% average from the charity stripe.

The Thompson Rivers men come into the game 9-8 on the season and most recently have gone 2-1 against competition in the U.S. in December. They lost an exhibition game to Western Washington from the GNAC on December 15, 95-78, but then won two straight games over two teams from the NAIA Division I Frontier Conference. They knocked off Rocky Mountain College, 85-76, on December 18 and then defeated Carroll College of Montana, 64-55 the next day. Both games were played in Chandler, Arizona at the Chandler-Gilbert Classic. 

The WolfPack, from Kamloops, B.C., is led by 6-10 Josh Wolfram who's averaging 20.4 points per game, shooting 47.7% and 43% from beyond the 3-point line. They're shooting 41% as a team, 31% from the 3-point line. This will be the 4th meeting between the teams with Northwest U holding a 2-1 edge in the series.

Following tday's contests, the NU women will then remain on the road and will travel to Eugene, Ore., on Friday, January 2 to play New Hope Christian in another non-league game and then return the very next day to play Evergreen in Olympia in a Cascade Conference game at 5:30 p.m. The NU men will also be in Olympia on Saturday to play the Evergreen men in a CCC match-up at 7:30 p.m., in the second game of a doubleheader.