Home Again
The Niagara Purple Eagles return home after a two-game road swing to face the Saint Peter's Peacocks on Friday at noon in the Gallagher Center.
    
Fours are wild for the Purple Eagles (2-9; 1-1 MAAC) who look to snap a four-game losing skid against a Peacocks (2-9; 1-1 MAAC) team that they have a four-game winning streak going back to the 2011-12 season.
    
Niagara averaged 60.5 ppg while hitting 42.6 percent (46-for-108) of its looks from the floor and held Saint Peter's to 50.5 ppg and just a 25.9 percent (35-135) from the floor in last season's pair of wins.  Meghan McGuinness averaged 13.5 ppg in the two games and hit 46.2 percent (6-for-13) from three-point range.
    
The Purple and White took the season series in 2011-12 as well, due in part to shooting 12-for-23 (52.2 percent) as a team from beyond the arc while holding the then Peahens to a 3-for-20 (15.0 percent) showing.
    
Friday will also be the first time Niagara head coach Kendra Faustin will face first-year Saint Peter's head coach Pat Coyle.  With the recent run of success, Faustin's career record against SPU sits at 6-6 since taking over in 2007.  While this is Coyle's first season with the Peacocks, she is familiar with the MAAC after a stint with the Loyola Greyhounds, where she coached from 1992-99 and amassed an 11-2 record against Niagara.
    
These teams will her their season series out of the way in a hurry since they will meet twice in Just over a week.  The Purple Eagles and the Peacocks will meet again next Sunday for another matchup at high noon, this time in Jersey City, N.J. 
 
How To Tune In
•    Purple Eagle fans can follow all of Sunday's action via PurpleEagles.com.  A live video feed with announcer Dave Universal will begin at 11:50 and fans will be able to follow along with live stats.
 
Against the Peacocks (Saint Peter's leads 42-15)
•   The Purple Eagles have swept the last two season series against the Peacocks for four-consecutive wins.  Before this most recent string of success, NU dropped both contests in the 2010-11 season after splitting both games in 2009-10.
 
You Look Familiar
•  Friday's matchup will be the first of two meetings in nine days the Purple Eagles will have with the Peacocks.
•  This will be the first of three times NU will face an opponent in two-consecutive weekends.  The other two are against Marist (1/17 & 1/25) and Canisius (1/29 & 2/7).
 
M&M Enterprises
•  Junior Meghan McGuinness has played in four career games against Saint Peter's and has averaged 14.5 ppg in those games.
•  The Purple Eagles have yet to drop a game to the Peacocks since this year's junior class (McGuinness, Gabby Baldasare, Val McQuade, and Kelly Van Leeuwen) has been on the roster. 
 
Breaking The 600 Point Barrier
•  Meghan McGuinness scored her 600th career point on Tuesday against Fairfield.  She entered the game with 595 points and turned in a 15-point effort to get on the team bus with 610 career points.
 
Getting Back In The Win Column
•  The Purple Eagles enter Friday's game on a four-game losing skid but will look to break it against a team which they have a four-game winning streak. 
 
Double Up
•  Val McQuade became the second Purple Eagle to collect a double-double this season when she scored 17 points and picked up 10 rebounds against Fairfield on Dec. 31. 
•  It was the junior's first career double-double.  The closest she came before Tuesday was in last season's matchup against Iona on Jan. 24, 2013 when she scored 16 points and pulled in nine rebounds.
 
Ringing In The New Year
•  Niagara is 14-23 all-time in games to start a calendar year.
•  NU has split the last two games to start the new year.  It dropped last year's game against Iona 76-65 that opened 2013 after taking the game against Loyola 57-54 to open 2012.
•  Recently, the most successful stretch came between 2000-05 when the team went 4-1.
 
More Records, Because, Why Not?
•  Taylor McKay set new career-highs against Fairfield with points in a game against (11), field-goals made (5), and in minute played (25).
•  McKay's former career-best in all three categories came in the season opening tilt against Lehigh.