AMHERST, N.Y. – The Daemen College men's basketball team returns to action with two games this week preceding the Christmas holiday, putting its undefeated home record (7-0) on the line when it faces NAIA powerhouse Grace College (Thursday, Dec. 20 at 7:30pm) and Wilfird Laurier University (Saturday, Dec. 22 at 4:00pm) of the Ontario University Athletics Association – one of the top conferences in Canada.
 
Daemen and Grace will meet for the second consecutive year while WLU comes to town for the first time since the 2010-11 season.

Daemen was ranked fourth for the second straight week in the USCAA Division I poll released on Dec. 14.  A new poll will be announced this Friday, Dec. 21.
 
Daemen enters this week's games having won four of its last five games, including a hard-fought 73-67 road victory over long-time rival Roberts Wesleyan College in their last outing back on Dec. 11.  The win in Rochester, N.Y. capped a stretch of three games in five nights after the Wildcats split a pair of games against Division II schools at the Joe Manchin Classic hosted by Salem International University. Daemen ran past the host Tigers, 86-66, on Dec. 7, before dropping a thrilling 97-95 setback to Newberry College on Dec. 8.

The win over Roberts Wesleyan pushed Daemen's record to 4-3 against NCAA Division II teams this season, with two of the losses being by a total of three points.  RWC, Daemen's long-standing nemesis from both schools' days as NAIA teams, is a new member of the East Coast Conference as it progresses through the NCAA D-II membership process, as is Daemen.
 
Five players are averaging in double figures for Daemen, which stands at 12-4 overall and is averaging 87.2 points per game.
 
Sophomore big man Gerald Beverly (Rochester, N.Y./Gates Chili) has been a dominant force inside all season. He totaled a career-high 28 points in an 80-79 loss to Molloy back on Nov. 10 and has recorded seven double-doubles on the year.  He leads the team in scoring (15.1 ppg), rebounding (7.8 rpg) and blocks (26).

Junior guard Casey Sheehan (Rochester, N.Y./Greece Athena) has really come on of late offensively for the Wildcats, raising his season average from 11.2 to 14.0 points per game over the past five games.  In that stretch, he's averaged 19.0 points per game while shooting 56-percent from the field (34-for-61).  He was named MVP of the Joe Manchin Classic after shooting 56-percent (19-for-34) from the field and totaling 52 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals over the two games. He poured in a career-high 27 points in the loss to Newberry.  Sheehan also ranks second on the team in three-pointers (17), assists (3.9 apg) and steals (30).
 
Junior point guard Mark Coppola (Williamsville, N.Y./Williamsville South) matched a career-high with 14 points in the win over Roberts Wesleyan last week – his first game in double figures this season.  Coppola has also dished out seven or more assists six times this season, including a season-high 10 helpers in Daemen's 105-59 rout of the University of Toronto (Nov. 2), and is averaging 6.1 assists per game.  He currently ranks third in career assists (364) among the program's all-time leaders.
 
Forwards Kadeem Johnson (Syracuse, N.Y./Henninger) and Jim Regan (Williamsville, N.Y./Nichols) have also produced.  Johnson has scored in double figures nine times and equaled his career-high for points (18) in the win over Salem International.  He is shooting a team-high 60-percent (68-for-112) from the field and is averaging 10.0 points and 6.7 rebounds.  Regan has scored in double figures in five of the last seven games and is averaging 10.9 points and 6.0 rebounds.  He enters this week's games just  one point shy of 1,000 for his career.  He also recorded his 100th career block during Daemen's trip to West Virginia, making him just the fourth player in program history to reach 100 or more blocks.

Bench support has come from sophomore forward Jordan Greene (Fort Edward, N.Y./South Glens Falls) and Uchechi Ogbonna (Hicksville, N.Y./Erie CC) in recent games. 

Greene was named to the all-tournament team at the Joe Manchin Classic after he connected on 5-of-12 three-pointers and scored a career-high 28 points in the loss to Newberry. The 6-foot-5 forward has provided instant offense off the bench for the Wildcats. He has shot 54-percent (20-for-37) from behind the arc and has averaged 14.3 points over the past seven games.  Overall, he leads the team in three-pointers (31) and is averaging 10.6 points per outing.

Ogbonna stepped up with 11 points in last week's six-point victory over the Redhawks.  It was his first double figure outing since opening the season with four straight (last time was 15 points vs. Queens on Nov. 9).  For the season, he's scoring 8.1 points and pulling in 3.6 rebounds per game while shooting 44% from the field (44-for-100).

Also picking up his play lately has been redshirt sophomore guard Aaron Davis (N. Tonawanda, N.Y./N. Tonawanda).  Davis scored 12 points and brought in six rebounds during Daemen's 113-53 thrashing of Sheridan College on Dec. 3.  For the season, he's averaging 5.2 points and 2.6 rebounds in just 13.0 minutes per game while also providing the necessary hustle plays that don't always end up on the stat sheet.

Thursday's game will mark the 5th all-time meeting between the Daemen  and Grace with the Lancers prevailing in all four previous meetings. 

The Lancers scored a 71-69 victory when the two teams met last season in Winona Lake, Ind. on Dec. 9, 2011.  Daemen built double-figure leads in both halves, leading by as many as 12 at 60-48 in the second half before their offense sputtered, producing just nine points in the final 9:00 of the game.  Grace's Bruce Grimm, Jr. sunk the game-winner, a pull-up jump shot with 5.6 seconds left.  An open three-point look from the Wildcats' Dom Mazzocchi (Geneva, NY/Finger Lakes CC) was off the mark as time expired.
 
Grace – the #9 ranked team in the latest NAIA Division II poll – comes into Thursday's game having won five of their last six and at 9-3 overall.  The Lancers were 88-55 winners over former American Mideast Conference foe Fisher College this past Monday in Boston, Mass.

Playing in one of the toughest NAIA conference's in the land – the Crossroads League (formerly the Mid-Central Collegiate Conference) – Grace won a share of the regular season conference title and the conference's post-season tournament a season ago.  They are led so far in 2012-13 by Grimm, Jr., a 6'2” senior guard, who comes into Thursday's showdown averaging a team-high 17.3 points while also leading the team in assists (6.2 apg).

Also producing for the Lancers has been 6'6” junior forward Greg Miller who gives them 16.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game while shooting 54-percent (75-for-140) from the field and 36-percent (17-for-47) from three-point range.  Miller has been especially good lately with a 24-point outing vs. Wilberforce (Dec. 7) and a career-high 27-point outing vs. Madonna (Dec. 14).  He's been named the Crossroads League Player of the Week in back-to-back weeks.

Senior guard Elliot Smith is a sniper who comes in averaging 12.3 points per game while leading the team in three-pointers (35).  The six-footer became the 44^th player to top 1,000 career points for the Lancers, breaking the barrier during Grace's 15-point win over Wilberforce.

Grace will face Wilfrid Laurier in a neutral site contest hosted by Daemen at 3 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 21 as well.

The Hawks come into this week's action with a 3-11 mark that includes non-conference and exhibition games.  In conference, Wilfrid Laurier sits at 2-5 and in a four-way tie for third place in the OUA Western Division standings.  They've lost three straight, including a 100-72 setback vs. Carleton in their last outing on Dec. 1.

Wilfrid Laurier features 6'4” guard Maxwell Allin who leads the OUA in scoring (23.7 ppg) and rebounding (11.4 rpg) while also ranking fifth in assists (4.3 apg).

Daemen is 5-0 all-time against the Hawks.  The teams last met on Dec. 21, 2010 with the host Wildcats scoring a 104-69 victory.  Sheehan pumped in 22 points to go with six rebounds and six assists for Daemen in that one.