January 28, 2008

Men's Basketball Hosts Saint Anselm Wednesday Night
Tipoff 7:30 pm Chace Athletic Center

LISTEN LIVE / LIVE STATS / LIVE VIDEO /  GAME NOTES (PDF) 

The Bryant men's basketball team goes for its third consecutive win Wednesday evening hosting the Hawks of Saint Anselm.  Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m. The game will be carried live online at www.bryantbulldogs.com with Pat Sullivan and Jared Hager calling all of the live action.  This will be the second meeting of the year between Bryant and Saint Anselm.  The Hawks won the first meeting, 80-75 back on Nov. 20 in Manchester, NH despite 14 made three-pointers by the Bulldogs.  Bryant is 5-4 at home this season but just 3-4 against Northeast-10 Conference opponents.  Saint Anselm (8-10, 6-8 NE-10) comes in having dropped two straight and three of its last four.

BULLDOG UPDATE
Winners of two straight and three of its last four, the Bulldogs are riding high after posting a pair of road wins recently.  Bryant defeated Le Moyne, 73-52 back on Jan. 19 and after a week's rest came back strong with a 56-50 road win at UMass Lowell last Saturday.  Cecil Gresham (Bloomfield, CT) continued his hot-shooting with a game-high 17 points while Jon Ezeokoli (South Orange, NJ) added 16.  This will be lone pitstop in Smithfield, RI for the Bulldogs who will head to Bentley Saturday (3:30 pm) and Franklin Pierce (Tue., Feb. 5) before returning back to the Chace Athletic Center for a three-game homestand starting with a Northeast-10 Conference game against AIC Feb. 9. Bryant is 5-4 away from home this season (4-3 in NE-10 games).

NOTHING'S FREE
Bryant is 30-37 (81.1 percent) from the free throw line in the last three games.  The Bulldogs made 9 of 12 free throws in Saturday's win at UMass Lowell.  Bryant made 10 of 13 from the stripe against Southern NH and 11 of 12 at Le Moyne.

CLEANING THE GLASS
Bryant is currently third in the conference in offensive rebounding (37.7) and second in the league in rebounding defense (33.0).  The Bulldogos have only been out-rebounded three times this year (UMass Lowell, Adelphi, Southern NH) losing just once in those games (SNHU). No surprise, as a result the Bulldogs lead the league with a +4.7 rebounding margin on the season.

MORE WINS FOR MAX
Seventh-year coach Max Good heads into Wednesday's game with Saint Anselm with 125 coaching victories at Bryant. He needs on more win to tie Leon Drury's win total of 126 spanning 11 seasons.  Tom Foliard is the all-time winningest coach wtih 174 victories from 1968 to 1978.

CECIL HITS HIS STRIDE
Sophomore Cecil Gresham (Bloomfield,CT) has been on a tear as of late. The forward is second on the team in scoring after a strong 17-point effort at UMass Lowell last Saturday.  He is currently 10th in the conference with a 42 percent three-point field goal percentage (29 for 69).  Gresham has scored in double figures in seven of his last eight games and 10 times in all this season.

RUNNING THE SHOW
Sophomore Chris Birrell (Scituate, RI) is currently third on the team in scoring wtiwth 10.8 ppg and leads the Bulldogs with 62 assists on the year.  The transfer from Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) and local product, is averaging 31 minutes per game and has has 36 steals on the season.

SCOUTING THE HAWKS
Saint Anselm looks to snap a two-game losing skid Wednesday night and complete the season sweep of the Bulldogs.  The Hawks fell to Merrimack 69-63 on Jan. 22 and dropped a tough 73-71 loss to Assumption at home Saturday.  Like Bryant, Saint Anselm has found much better success on the road where they are 5-3 overall and 4-3 in league games.  Surprising, Saint Anselm is just 2-6 at home.  Chris Vetrano leads three players averaging double figures wtih 14.8 ppg and has a team-best 47 three-point field goals.  He is currently fifth in the conference with 2.61 made three's per game average.  Thomas Baudinet and John Tello bring a 12.8 and 10.3 ppg scoring average into the game.   

EASY DOES IT
Senior Jon Ezeokoli has enjoyed a tremendous career with the Bulldogs.  A member of the NCAA runner up team as a freshman in ‘05, Ezeokoli has 1,187 career points (17th all-time) and grabbed 516 rebounds.  This year he is averaging 14.9 ppg and has made 32 three's to give him 149 (4th) all-time.

IT'S WINNING TIME
Jon Ezeokoli and Chris Birrell have been the key go-to guys down the stretch. Birrell is averaging 2.5 ppg and is shooting 85 percent (22-26) from the free throw line in the final five minutes of games this season.  Ezeokoli is averaging 2.2 ppg and shooting 81 percent from the line with the game on the line.

BRYANT TO JOIN NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
In October, Bryant officially accepted an invitation to join the Division I Northeast Conference.  The school will begin a four-year transition to Division I and become a full member of the Northeast Conference in the fall of 2012.  This will be Bryant's final season as a member of the Division II ranks and will begin a Division I schedule in 2008-09.  Bryant will not be eligible for conference or NCAA postseason play during the four-year transition period.  The Northeast Conference includes members:  Central Connecticut, Fairleigh Dickinson, Long Island, Monmouth, Mount St. Mary's, Quinnipiac, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, St. Francis NY, St. Francis PA, and Wagner. 

BULLDOGS ON TV
In addition to the Bulldogs appearing on NE10.tv each night, the Feb. 2 game at Bentley will be broadcast live online on CSTV.com.  For the second consecutive year, Bryant will also play live to the local community with an appearance on Cox Sports TV-3 February 16 when the Bulldogs host Southern Connecticut. 

HALL OF FAME /ALUMNI GAME
The American International College game on Saturday, February 9th will be Basketabll Alumni Day.  There will be an alumni game at 11 a.m. prior to the start of the women's game.  The day is also Hall of Fame Weekend as Bryant will induct six new members inito its Hall of Fame later in the evening.