The Riverside-Durham Pirates will head out on the road to square off against the Richmond Raiders at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the two teams will really light up the scoreboard.
It can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but Riverside-Durham had no problem doing just that on Tuesday. They came out on top against the Patriots by a score of 66-59.
Corey Hairston Jr. continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 24 points along with six rebounds and two steals. The team also got some help courtesy of Daniel Kelleh, who scored nine points along with three steals.
Meanwhile, Richmond came tearing into Tuesday's contest with 14 straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 33.7 points) and they left with even more momentum. They really took it to East Chapel Hill for the full four quarters, racking up a 104-47 victory at home. Richmond has made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won 14 matchups by 25 points or more this season.
Richmond's win was a true team effort, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Paul McNeil Jr., who shot 5-for-12 from downtown and dropped a double-double on 32 points and ten rebounds. McNeil Jr. is on a roll when it comes to points, as he's now scored 19 or more in the last nine games he's played. Another player making a difference was JV Drake, who scored 30 points along with seven steals and five assists.
Riverside-Durham's win was their fifth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 18-9. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 59.8 points per game. As for Richmond, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 17 of their last 19 games, which provided a nice bump to their 22-5 record this season.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as Riverside-Durham and Richmond are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Riverside-Durham hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 55.9 points per game. However, it's not like Richmond struggles in that department as they've been averaging 81.4 points per game. With both teams so easily able to put up points, the only question left is who can run the score up higher Check back here after the action for a full breakdown and analysis of the contest.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
