Supreme Hannah and the Daemen men's basketball team will enjoy 15 games this season at Lumsden Gymnasium where the Wildcats are 47-3 in the last four seasons

Men's Basketball 9/3/2015 9:34:00 AM

Men's Basketball 2015-16 Schedule Announced

AMHERST, N.Y. - The Daemen College men's basketball team will play 15 of its 28 regular season games at home to highlight the team's 2015-16 schedule which was announced today by second-year bench boss Mike MacDonald. The 15 home games are the most for Daemen since they played 16 in 2010-11, and this season will mark the first time that Daemen will be eligible to qualify for the East Coast Conference tournament as the team embarks on its first season as a full member of NCAA Division II.

"We are excited to be facing a very challenging and difficult schedule this year as we move into full Division II membership," said MacDonald who guided the Wildcats to a 21-10 campaign in 2014 after coming over from Medaille College where he held the same position. "Obviously the East Coast Conference will be very tough as there are a lot of good players returning throughout the league. Our non-league schedule will challenge us as well with teams who played in the NCAA tournament and teams who beat us last year like Holy Family and Mercyhurst. Hopefully we are up to the challenge."

Before the regular season gets underway, the Wildcats will tune-up with a pair of exhibition games. First, Daemen will host Brock University, traditionally one of the top teams in Canada, on October 30. The Wildcats' second chance to prep comes against NCAA Division I affiliate University at Buffalo. Daemen will make the short three-mile trek to UB's Alumni Arena to face the Bulls who are coming off the program's first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division I tournament. MacDonald's squad will be looking to capture lightning in a bottle for the second-straight year after knocking off Division I Canisius College in an exhibition last season (83-81 in overtime).

The ball gets tossed up for real on November 13 and 14 when Daemen hosts its annual Knee Center of Western New York ECC-CACC Challenge. The four-team event features ECC foe Roberts Wesleyan College, as well as a pair of teams from the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference - Wilmington University and Holy Family University. It'll mark the fifth time in the past six years that Daemen's regular season has opened by hosting a four-team event such as this. The Wildcats have gone 7-1 in those season-opening tournaments as part of the program's 56-10 home record since the 2010-11 season.

This year's opening event marks the second consecutive for this particular format, pitting opponents from two conferences against one another. Daemen will open against Wilmington with a raucous Friday night crowd expected before squaring off versus Holy Family in a Saturday matinee. The opener features a battle of the Wildcats as Daemen and Wilmington (also with a Wildcat mascot) tip-it-up for the first time since February 13, 2000, a 63-67 Wilmington victory. The series with Holy Family is a little fresher and Daemen will look to avenge a 69-58 loss in Philadelphia last November. The Tigers went 22-8 and advanced to the CACC tournament semifinals in 2014. Daemen will be looking for another sweep of the weekend's action after defeating CACC foes Concordia College (N.Y.) (85-50) and Post University (88-80) in last year's event.

The remainder of the non-conference schedule plays out from mid-November through early January. A pair of home clashes, one versus Washington Adventist University (November 21) and another against Mercyhurst University (November 24) give the Wildcats four straight at home to start the year. WAU, a dual-member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA), represents the only non-Division II opponent on Daemen's regular season docket. The Wildcats have met both WAU and MU in each of the last two seasons, splitting the series with both opponents. A 90-84 overtime win for MU over Daemen last November was part of the Lakers' 20-9 season that included an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

Daemen's first road test comes on December 1 at Slippery Rock University in the first-ever meeting between the two teams. The Rock, an affiliate of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, went 21-11 last season, also earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

A third-straight game against a PSAC opponent happens on December 12 when Edinboro University makes its first-ever trip to Lumsden Gymnasium. The Fighting Scots were PSAC tournament qualifiers last season, finishing with a 14-13 overall record.

ECC play gets going when University of the District of Columbia comes to Amherst a day later (December 13) for a Sunday matinee. Daemen has dominated the series with UDC since joining the league for the 2013-14 season, winning all four matchups in the last two years by an average margin of 31.8 points per game.

A pre-Christmas trip for conference games at Dowling College (December 18) and University of Bridgeport (December 20) winds out the 2015 portion of the schedule. The latter of the two matches up Daemen with the three-time defending ECC tournament champion UB Purple Knights who went 24-7 last season. The game at UB will be a rematch of last year's 63-60 thriller at Hubbell Gymnasium won by the Purple Knights thanks to a buzzer-beating trifecta by Ernest Rouse.

Play resumes after the New Year as the Wildcats conclude the non-conference portion of the schedule by partaking in the 10th Annual James Clancy Memorial Tournament hosted by Dominican College in Orangeburg, N.Y.. There, the Wildcats will take on the host Chargers (January 2) as well as Felician College (January 3). It'll mark the third-straight season the Daemen and Dominican have gotten together with each team winning on its home floor in the previous two matchups. Daemen got the better of last season's matchup, winning 79-72 here against a Dominican team that went on to finish at 14-13 overall, including a 14-5 mark in their league putting them atop the CACC's North Division standings at year's end. The Wildcats' matchup with Felician will be the first-ever meeting between the two teams.

ECC play heats up later that week with St. Thomas Aquinas College and Mercy College visiting Lumsden Gymnasium. STAC claimed a sweep of the season series with Daemen a season ago, as part of their 21-11 campaign that saw them earn the top seed to the conference tournament where they eventually fell to Bridgeport in the finals.

Road games at Roberts Wesleyan (January 12), Long Island University Post (January 15) and New York Institute of Technology (January 17) preceed home tilts versus Molloy College (January 22) and Queens College (January 24) which concludes the first round of conference play. Highlighting this stretch is the Wildcats' annual trek to RWC's Voller Athletic Center in Rochester, N.Y. where the Wildcats have emerged victorious in eight-straight dating back to the 2007-08 season. Also in this span of games, Daemen hosts Molloy at Lumsden Gymnasium which has proved to be a shop of horrors for the Lions in the past two seasons, falling twice to the Wildcats by an average margin of 26.5 points.

The second round of ECC games starts with a trip to our nation's capital to face UDC on January 29. That's followed by home tests versus Dowling (February 5) and Bridgeport (February 7), reminding the Wildcat faithful of a pair of nail-biters against those two opponents here last season as Daemen edged Dowling (89-88) and Bridgeport (91-88 in overtime) in less than a 24-hour span.

The Wildcats visit STAC (February 11) and Mercy (February 13) before returning home to face RWC (February 16), LIU Post (February 19) and NYIT (February 21). The return of NYIT is one to circle on the calendars after the Bears snapped Daemen's Division II-best 44-game home-court winning streak with an 85-84 overtime win when ECC Player of the Year Darian Hooker drained a fall-away three-pointer from the deep corner as time expired.

The regular season closes out with road games at Molloy (February 26) and Queens (February 28). Daemen will seek its second-straight road win at Molloy, winning 82-76 in overtime last season.

That sets the stage for the ECC tournament which will feature the top six teams in the final regular season standings. The play-in round is slated for March 2 with games being played at the No. 3 and 4 seeds. The semifinals (March 5) and finals (March 6) will take place at UDC with the four advancing teams vying for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tourney. As previously stated, this will be Daemen's first opportunity to qualify for the ECC tournament; the Wildcats would have been the tournament's No. 1 seed in 2013-14 and the No. 3 seed last year had they been eligible.

MacDonald will welcome back nine players off of last season's roster, headlined by incumbent starters Torrence Dyck (Rochester, N.Y./San Jacinto College), a first-team All-ECC selection, and Supreme Hannah (Rochester, N.Y./Eastridge). The obvious question heading into the season will be how the Wildcats will replace Gerald Beverly (Rochester, N.Y./Gates Chili), the two-time ECC Defensive Player of the Year and, arguably, the most decorated player in team history. But, Dyck should be in the discussion for ECC Preseason Player of the Year after averaging 19.3 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, and 6-foot-7 forward Arif Mehmetaj (Jamaica, N.Y./SUNY Delhi) is back as well. Mehmetaj started the first three games of the season playing alongside Beverly in the frontcourt, averaging 8.3 points and 8.7 rebounds before suffering a season-ending injury. With Mehmetaj healthy, and the addition of 10 new faces to the roster, it will be replacement-by-committee when it comes to filling the production lost with Beverly's graduation.

For continuing coverage and breaking news on the Daemen men's basketball team throughout the season, stay tuned to daemenwildcats.com and follow @DaemenMBB and @DaemenAthletics on Twitter.

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Players Mentioned

#55 Gerald Beverly: F; 6' 7"; Senior

#4 Torrence Dyck: G/F; 6' 5"; Senior

#3 Supreme Hannah: G; 6' 0"; Senior

#21 Arif Mehmetaj: F; 6' 7"; Junior

Players Mentioned

#55 Gerald Beverly
: 6' 7"; Senior
: F

#4 Torrence Dyck
: 6' 5"; Senior
: G/F

#3 Supreme Hannah
: 6' 0"; Senior
: G

#21 Arif Mehmetaj
: 6' 7"; Junior
: F