Barbitch and Charleston Southern host Mercer

Mercer Bears (4-3) at Charleston Southern Buccaneers (1-5)

North Charleston, South Carolina; Friday, 2 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Charleston Southern faces Mercer after Thelma Barbitch scored 23 points in Charleston Southern’s 65-57 loss to the Georgia Southern Eagles.

The Buccaneers are 1-1 in home games. Charleston Southern ranks seventh in the Big South with 11.7 assists per game led by Ashra Sra averaging 4.8.

The Bears have gone 2-2 away from home. Mercer ranks seventh in the SoCon with 18.7 defensive rebounds per game led by Nahawa Diarra Berthe averaging 3.6.

Charleston Southern scores 60.2 points per game, 4.5 fewer points than the 64.7 Mercer allows. Mercer has shot at a 39.1% clip from the field this season, 1.1 percentage points fewer than the 40.2% shooting opponents of Charleston Southern have averaged.

TOP PERFORMERS: Barbitch is shooting 37.1% and averaging 10.8 points for the Buccaneers. Caelan Ellis is averaging 3.0 made 3-pointers.

Micah O’Dell is scoring 11.7 points per game and averaging 3.0 rebounds for the Bears. Ariana Bennett is averaging 11.3 points and 3.6 rebounds.

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