FLUSHING, N.Y. - Playing without leading scorer Torrence Dyck for the first time this season, Daemen College suffered a 71-56 loss to Queens College in their regular-season finale here this afternoon in East Coast Conference men's basketball action.

Daemen, which had already secured the No. 2 seed to the upcoming ECC Tournament with their 76-74 victory Friday night at Molloy College, falls to 18-9 overall and 14-6 in the league.  Head coach Mike MacDonald opted to rest Dyck, his 6-foot-5 senior guard/forward who ends the regular season as the league's leading scorer at 21.8 points per game.

The win today marked the end of a tumultuous stretch for Queens which dismissed head coach Darryl Jacobs earlier in the week.  The Knights finish the season at 11-14 overall and 9-11 in ECC play, tied for sixth in the final league standings, but on the outside looking in at the conference tournament picture as Mercy College (12-14, 9-11 ECC) grabbed the sixth and final tourney berth by winning a tie-breaker with QC and Dowling College (13-14, 9-11 ECC).

QC's Fitzgerald Gymnasium proved to be a house of horrors for the second-straight year for the Wildcats.  Daemen lost here 93-83 in late January last season, and it's one of just three ECC venues where the Wildcats have lost in each of the last two seasons, along with University of Bridgeport's Hubbell Gymnasium and St. Thomas Aquinas College's Aquinas Hall.  The Wildcats' struggles today are a break from the norm as Daemen finished the regular season with an 8-4 mark overall in true road games, including a 7-3 mark in the league.  Daemen's eight road wins are second to only regular-season champion St. Thomas Aquinas which went 12-1 on the road this season, and their seven ECC road wins are tied with University of the District of Columbia.  

Junior guard/forward Tyree White (Brooklyn, N.Y.), fresh off posting a triple-double (15 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists) in QC's win over Roberts Wesleyan College on Friday evening, recorded a double-double today with 19 points and 10 boards to lead the Knights.  White, who entered the game as the nation's leader in steals, added two more thefts and shot 9-of-12 from the field.

Senior Travis Whitfield (Baldwin, N.Y.), playing in his final collegiate game, matched White with 19 points and added nine rebounds.  The Knights also got double-figure scoring from junior guard Diego Maldonado (Valley Stream, N.Y.) who chipped in with 14 points.

Daemen was paced today by reserve guard Jaleo Wilkes (Niagara Falls, N.Y./Polk State College) who finished with 13 points.  Wilkes has now reached double figures in two of the last four games.  Junior forward Arif Mehmetaj (Jamaica, N.Y./SUNY Delhi) hit a pair of three-pointers and totaled eight points, while freshman guard Jay Sarkis (Rochester, N.Y./Greece Athena) and junior big man Alex Borges (Erie, Pa./Mercyhurst Prep) split 14 points.

After two lead changes early in the opening stanza, a three-pointer from Daemen's Darius Garvin (Elmira, N.Y./Notre Dame) at the 6:36 mark evened the score at 21-21.  But, Daemen went scoreless for the remainder of the period, missing six field goal attempts and committing four turnovers, allowing Queens to close on a 9-0 run to take a 30-21 lead into the break.  Maldonado's trifecta just before the horn put an exclamation point on the period for the hosts.

The Daemen drought carried into the second half and hit eight minutes between field goals before Mehmetaj canned a three-pointer at the 18:33 mark.  By then, Queens had scored the first six points of the half to open up a 14-point lead (35-21) before Mehmetaj's jumper.  

Daemen's offensive woes continued and QC's lead swelled to 17 at the 14:23 mark following a Whitfield free throw.  Later, a Whitfield layup at the 8:07 mark put the hosts ahead by 20 (60-40).

The lead grew to as many as 24 points (71-47) after a dunk by Maldonado at the 3:41 mark.  Daemen scored the game's final nine points to provide the final margin.

Daemen shot just 30.2-percent from the field (16-for-53), its lowest percentage since shooting 30-percent even in a 72-51 non-league loss at Slippery Rock University on December 1.  It was just the sixth time this season that Daemen has shot below 40-percent for an entire game (1-5 record in those games).

The poor shooting led to Daemen's second-lowest point total of the season, just a little more than half of the 107 points they put up in their last meeting with the Knights, an 11-point win at Lumsden Gymnasium last month.

Queens capitalized on 18 Daemen turnovers (25-13 edge in points off turnovers), while also corralling 20 offensive rebounds in the game which resulted in a 23-9 advantage in second-chance points.  The Knights also collected 14 fastbreak points, and dominated with a 48-20 gap in points in the paint.

Despite today's loss, Daemen is now 44-16 in ECC play since joining the league three years ago, tied with Saint Thomas Aquinas for the most league victories in that span.  Daemen's 60 overall wins since the start of the of the 2013-14 season is also tied with STAC for the most among all ECC programs.

Looking ahead, Daemen is slated to make its inaugural ECC Tournament appearance next Saturday, March 5 at the UDC Sports Complex in our nation's capitial - the pre-determined site for this year's men's and women's ECC Tournament semifinals and finals.  They'll await the winner of the play-in game between No. 3 UDC vs No. 6 Mercy which takes place this Wednesday, March 2.  Daemen split the season series with the third-seeded Firebirds while sweeping the sereis against the underdog Mavericks this year.  Look for a full tournament preview at daemenwildcats.com later this week.