SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The Augustana men's basketball team returns to action on Friday and Saturday with a pair of contests in Sioux Falls. Friday's game is against No. 2 MSU Moorhead inside the Sanford Pentagon while Saturday's game is against Minnesota Crookston inside the Elmen Center.
 
Complete action can be followed on GoAugie.com/Live and the GoAugie app, presented by The Original Pancake House. The app can be downloaded in the App Store or Google Play. 
 
About the Dragons
MSU Moorhead is 12-0 on the season and ranked No. 2 in the nation. Holding a 6-0 mark in the NSIC, the Dragons are sitting atop the league standings after being tabbed fourth in the preseason poll.
 
Jacob Beeninga leads MSUM in scoring with 19.4 points per game but uses a lot of shots to get there while shooting 38.8 percent from the field. Jamir Price chips in 15 points per outing while Dan Zimmer nears a double-double with 10.7 points and 8.0 rebounds per contest.
 
About the Golden Eagles
Minnesota Crookston is 4-8 overall and 1-5 in the NSIC. The lone win came in a seven-point victory over Northern State on Dec. 16, which snapped a five-game losing streak. After the holiday break, the Golden Eagles then dropped a 15-point contest at Minot State in nonconference action.
 
Blaize Sagna ranks second in the league in scoring with his 22.0 points per game while leading the league in minutes played. Reid Grant joins Sagna in double-figure scoring with 15.3 points per outing. Aguek Deng is the leading rebounder with 8.8 per contest. Deng leads the league and ranks ninth in NCAA Division II with his 27 total blocked shots on the year, an average of 2.25 per game.
 
About the Vikings
Augustana is 7-6 on the season with a 2-5 mark in the NSIC. The Vikings are coming off their final nonconference game of the season, a 77-68 win over Briar Cliff on Dec. 30. In the game, Jadan Graves went off for a season-high 27 points while proving to shoot an efficient 7-for-11 from the field.
 
For the season, Isaac Fink continues to lead AU with 18.7 points per game with a team-best 6.8 rebounds per outing. Graves is at 15.8 points and a team-high 3.8 assists per game. Graves is making 45.6 percent of his 3-point field goal attempts, ranking third in the NSIC while his 36 total makes from deep places him tops in the conference and 21^st in the nation.
 
In the Vikings' last outing, Graves also went 11-for-11 from the free throw line, putting an exclamation point on a season-long trend. As a team, AU shoots 79.2 percent from the charity stripe, first in the NSIC and 11^th in NCAA Division II. That is nearly two percentage points better than the league's second best team, Minnesota State, at 77.3 percent.
 
One Last Thing
Assuming Isaac Fink starts on Friday night, after starting all 13 games so far in 2023-24, it'll mark his 100^th career start. He'll become the eighth player at Augustana with 100 career starts. The all-time leader in starts is Jordan Spencer and the 130 starts he had from 2013-2018.