The Niagara Purple Eagles open up December with a Wednesday evening matchup against the Kent State Golden Flashes at the Memorial Athletic & Convocation Center in Kent, Ohio.
    
These teams met for the first time last season, when the Purple Eagles came out on top 82-55 for the most lopsided victory since Kendra Faustin's first game as bench-boss.  Four Purple Eagles finished in double-digits, including Chanel Johnson (16 points) and Kelly Van Leeuwen (11 points).  Johnson shot 7-for-11 from the floor on a night where NU hit a 50 percent (30-for-60) clip as a team and Van Leeuwen hit 6-of-7 from the charity stripe.  Niagara led nearly every statistical category that night, including outrebounding Kent State 43-30 and outscoring the visitors 34-6 off of turnovers.  The Purple Eagles prevented a rally by holding the Golden Flashes to just 25 percent (8-for-32) from the floor in the second half.
    
This year the Purple Eagles enter the matchup with three players averaging over 10 ppg.  Meghan McGuinness leads the team with 13.4 ppg and was one of the few bright spots from the team's most recent 71-57 loss to Oakland.  The junior is coming off of a 15-point outing where she went 3-for-6 from beyond the arc and 3-for-4 from inside it.  Victoria Rampado's 14-point effort got her into the double-digits for the season; she is in a tie with Val McQuade for second on the team with 10.6 ppg. 
    
The Golden Flashes have struggled of late as the team has lost its last five games.  Since they opened the season with a 75-74 overtime win over Eastern Kentucky, the Golden Flashes have averaged just 54.8 ppg and have been held under 50 points twice, first in a 65-46 loss to Cincinnati and in a 54-44 loss to Houston.
    
One of the keys to success for Niagara will be jumping out to a lead early.  Kent State has been outscored 231-144 in the first half this season for a -87 scoring margin.  That number shrinks to -28 in the second half where the Golden Flashes have still been outscored, but only 220-192.

•    Purple Eagle fans can follow all of Wednesday's action via PurpleEagles.com.  Live stats and a live video broadcast will be provided through Kent State

• The Purple Eagles have a 1-0 advantage over the Golden Flashes after taking last season's inaugural meeting 82-55. Wednesday's game will be the first meeting at the MAC Center.

•  Niagara has played seven of the 13 teams that make up the modern day MAC with cross town rival Buffalo accounting for 32 of those matchups. Five teams (BGSU, Ohio, Eastern Michigan, Akron, Kent State, and Buffalo) have played NU since 2010.

•  Niagara has an all-time record of 20-18 in the first game of December.
•  The Purple Eagles have one the last two Decembers openers, a 82-55 win over Kent State and a 61-60 win over Colgate.
•  The team is 3-3 in the first game of December under Kendra Faustin.

•  The Purple Eagles have a 113-126 all-time record in the month of December.
•  Their all-time best showing in the final month of the year was in 1976-77 when they went a perfect 7-0. Last season they went 3-3.

• The Purple Eagles have outrebounded their opponents in each of their last two games.  They topped Binghamton 33-29 (11-23) and Oakland 47-43 (11-27).

•  This will be the first game played on Dec. 4 since Kendra Faustin has been head coach.
•  The last time NU played on 12/4 was back in the 1996-1997 season.

•  Kelly Van Leeuwen ranks fourth in the MAAC and 35th in the NCAA with an Assist/Turnover Ratio of 2.9.  She has 20 assists (4.0 per game) and only seven (1.4 per game) on the season.
•  She has 20 assists on the year for a 4.0 apg on the season, which is good for fifth in the conference.