Cullowhee, N.C. – Winners of four straight, Western Carolina men's basketball returns home to the friendly confines of Ingles Court at the Ramsey Center for its final nonconference game of the regular season and the last game of the 2023 calendar year as the Catamounts entertain the King University Tornado in the backend of a WCU hoops doubleheader. WCU's women's squad raises the curtain by hosting nonconference foe Southern Wesleyan at 1 p.m., with the men's game serving as the nightcap against King following at 4 p.m.
 
Both games will be broadcast on ESPN+ (paid subscription required) with live audio from the Catamount Sports Network and live stats available at CatamountSports.com. Tickets for Saturday's twin bill are available online at CatamountSports.com/BuyTickets.
 
Saturday's game concludes a season-long nine-day hiatus for the holiday break for the Catamount men and comes on the heels of an 85-47 home victory over non-Division I foe Brescia University back on the Dec. 21 Education Day in Cullowhee. Tre Jackson hit four 3-pointers and led five Catamounts in double figures with a game-high 18 points while Vonterius Woolbright – who collected his fourth Southern Conference Player of the Week honor on Tuesday and USBWA national honors on Wednesday – posted his NCAA-leading ninth double-double with 16 points and a career-high 17 rebounds that included five on the offensive end. Woolbright finished three assists shy of a triple-double, dishing out seven helpers including six in the first half.
 
Russell Jones Jr. matched Jackson with four 3-pointers in tying DJ Campbell with 14 points with Bernard Pelote rounding out the five in double figures, coming off the bench to chip in 11.
 
Woolbright continues to pace the Southern Conference with a double-double with 21.1 points and 12.3 rebounds per game – marks that rank him 12th and third in the NCAA statistics through the holiday. He leads the nation with an average of 10.25 defensive rebounds per game while additionally ranking third in the SoCon with 5.2 assists per game. Woolbright is one of four Catamounts averaging in double figures, flanked by Campbell (12.1 ppg), Jackson (11.8 ppg), and Jones Jr. (11.6 ppg).

As a scoring aside, two Catamounts are closing in on 1,000 career points as NCAA Division I student-athletes. Woolbright (993) is just seven points shy of the milestone, all scored at WCU, while Jackson (981) transferred to WCU with 317 points over three seasons at Iowa State and is now just 19 points away from the career achievement.
 
Collectively, WCU hit the 10-win plateau before the holiday season for the first time since 2009-10 as that Catamount squad was also 10-2 on its way to starting the season 12-2 overall. In addition to riding the four-game seasonal win streak, the Catamounts have won eight consecutive home games in Cullowhee dating back to the final three home dates of the 2022-23 regular season.
 
Also this week, Western Carolina climbed in both national mid-major rankings, advancing two positions into 10th in the Mid-Major Top 25 by CollegeInsider.com released on Dec. 26, and up to No. 11 in the Field of 68 Media Network's Cinderella Top 25 poll. WCU is one of three SoCon schools in the mid-major poll, just ahead of No. 14 UNCG and No. 17 Samford. The Catamounts are the highest-ranked team in the Cinderella Top 25, followed by Samford at No. 12 and UNCG tipping the scales at No. 21 this week.
 
Saturday's opponent – King University – is an NCAA Division II program playing out of the Conference Carolinas since 2011. WCU was a part of that same conference under its previous names of the Old North State Conference and the Carolinas Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (CIAC) – or Carolinas Conference – from 1933 until moving to the NCAA Division I ranks in 1969.
 
Picked to finish 11th in the 14-team Conference Carolina's preseason poll, King enters the week at 2-8 overall. The Tornado has dropped four straight games including three in conference play with two against the top two teams in the preseason poll – a 10-point loss at home to preseason favorite UNC Pembroke and a 25-point defeat at preseason No. 2 Emmanuel.
 
King is averaging 70.2 points per game for the year but enters Saturday's match-up after being held to a season-low 42 points last time out in a lopsided, 31-point loss to Lander, 73-42.
 
Wilmington, N.C., freshman Mikhail Pocknett leads the Tornado in both scoring at 15.1 points and rebounding at 5.6 boards per game. Two listed as preseason players to watch in junior forward Kenny Turner and sophomore forward Jordan Akal rank just outside the double-digit plateau at 9.7 and 8.9 points per game, respectively. King has gotten an offensive shot in the arm in the return of 6-5 senior swingman Josh Jackson – a former teammate of WCU's Woolbright at Lawson State CC – who scored 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting in 10 minutes off the bench against Lander.
 
Another familiar face Catamount fans may recognize on Saturday is third-year King assistant coach Stephen McDonald. An eight-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a 2016 graduate of WCU, McDonald served under former Catamount head coach Larry Hunter, finishing as the program's Director of Basketball Operations from 2014-17.
 
Western Carolina and King University meet for just the second time on the men's basketball hardwood  – and for the first time in over 65 years in Saturday's matchup. WCU claimed the only other series meeting back in 1958. The Catamounts have played 10 of the current 14 members of the Conference Carolinas posting a 60-31 record against those programs with the most recent meeting coming against Southern Wesleyan back in 2018.
 
Following Saturday's calendar-ending game against King, the Catamounts begin SoCon play with three of their next four games away from Cullowhee. WCU opens league play with a midweek matchup at The Citadel on Wed., Jan. 3, (7 p.m.) before playing its first home conference game against Wofford on Saturday, Jan. 6 (4 p.m.) before visiting both ETSU (Jan. 10) and Mercer (Jan. 13).
 
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