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RADFORD, Va. -- Radford steps out of conference play for the final time this season, hosting UNC Wilmington in a 7 p.m. Bracketbusters game on 2010 Homecoming Saturday at the Dedmon Center.
The Highlanders (15-11, 11-5 Big South) are one of four Big South teams participating in Bracketbusters, joining Gardner-Webb, Presbyterian and Winthrop, and will be playing in the event for the first time in school history. Radford's sixth all-time meeting with the Seahawks (8-19, 4-12 Colonial Athletic Association) will not be one of the 11-featured contests appearing on national television.
UNCW is the fourth CAA opponent the Highlanders will face this season and the third to visit the Dedmon Center. Radford's last home game with a CAA opponent was an 80-53 rout of George Mason on Dec. 30, the first win for the Highlanders over a CAA foe since 2003.
Radford's last meeting with UNCW came on Nov. 26, 2001, an 85-72 win over the Seahawks at the Dedmon Center. The Seahawks have a 3-2 series lead on Radford, but the Highlanders have won both series meetings at home.
The Highlanders bring a 4-1 February record into Saturday's game on the heels of a 74-69 come-from-behind road win over Liberty on Tuesday.
Art Parakhouski (Minsk, Belarus), who leads the nation with his 21 double-doubles, had 25 points and 13 rebounds against the Flames. Radford trailed by four with 6:36 left, but reeled off an 11-0 run highlighted by
Blake Smith's (Charlotte, N.C. / United Faith Christian) 3-pointer at the 5:26 mark that gave the Highlanders the lead for good.
Laz Trifunovic (Belgrade, Serbia) had 13 points in the win over Liberty, and now sits 10 away from being the third Radford player to reach 1,000 career points this season. Trifunovic scored 686 of his career points in two seasons at Binghamton, before transferring to Radford.
Radford has struggled recently at the free throw line, hitting fewer than 60 percent of its tries in four of the last five games, but connected on eight of 10 tosses in the final 1:36 against Liberty to secure the win.
UNCW has stumbled in 2010, dropping 11 of 13 games coming into Saturday night's meeting with Radford. The Seahawks led by as many as 14 in the second half on Tuesday night against CAA first-place team Northeastern, but the Huskies rallied for a 65-56 win. UNCW, which led 35-24 at halftime, turned the ball over 12 times and shot just 32 percent from the floor in the second half.
Junior guard Chad Tomko leads UNCW with 13.5 points and 4.4 assists per game. John Fields, who will miss Saturday's game due to a dislocated knee suffered in Tuesday's tilt with Northeastern, averages 10.2 points and 8.7 rebounds for the Seahawks.