FLUSHING, N.Y. - The Daemen College men's basketball team snapped a three-game losing skid and jumped back to .500 for the season (5-5 overall) with a hard-fought win over Queens College, a member of the East Coast Conference (ECC), winning 90-77.

Daemen improved to 5-5 on the year and 2-3 in conference play while Queens, dropped to 0-10 on the season.

Senior guard Casey Sheehan (Rochester, N.Y./Greece Athena) broke out of a shooting slump and totaled a team-high 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting (6-for-7 in second half).  He added four assists and two steals in the win as well. Junior Gerald Beverly (Rochester, N.Y./Gates Chili) and senior Uchechi Ogbonna (Hicksville, N.Y./Erie CC) combined for 39 points and 22 rebounds, each recording their second double-double of the weekend having done so in Daemen's nine-point loss at Molloy College on Friday night. Senior forward Kadeem Johnson (Syracuse, N.Y./Henninger) also added 11 points and five rebounds for the Wildcats.

Daemen took a 12-7 lead following a traditional three-point play by Johnson with 15:29 left in the first half. The teams traded baskets for the next seven minutes as the score was tied 26-26 before a three-pointer by Jordan Greene (Fort Edward, N.Y./South Glens Falls) sparked the Wildcats on a 16-6 run.  A layup by Johnson capped the run and Daemen went into intermission with a 42-32 lead.

The Wildcats held onto the lead and led by double digits for the rest of the game after going 16-for-28 (57-percent) from the field.  Senior guard Mark Coppola (Williamsville, N.Y./Williamsville South) knocked down a three-pointer at the 9:25 mark putting Daemen up 73-52. Coppola added five points and four assists for the Wildcats as he is now seven assists away from breaking the all-time school record.

From there, the remainder of the game was essentially a back-and-forth affair. With under a minute to play, Queens scored the last five points of the game leaving the final margin at 90-77. 

Queens shot 50-percent from the field (27-for-54) while the Wildcats went 33-for-65 (51-percent). The Knights also went 80-percent (4-for-5) from three-point range, but Daemen finished with a dominating 44-26 edge in rebounding.

Ronald Washington Jr. scored a team-high 21 points off the bench while teammate Amir Tarif chipped in 20 points and six rebounds for the Knights.

Daemen is idle until Jan. 4 when they travel to Sparkill, N.Y. for a date with East Coast Conference opponent  St, Thomas Aquinas College at 3 p.m. at Aquinas Hall. Daemen's next home game is not until Jan. 12 when it hosts the University of the District of Columbia in an ECC game at 3 p.m.