| THE LEAD |
| The Daemen College men's basketball team rounds out the pre-Christmas portion of their 2016-17 season by hosting St. Michael's College in a non-league game late Monday morning (Dec. 19; tip-off at 11 a.m.)...the game will mark Daemen's first against a Northeast-10 Conference member since defeating Le Moyne College 73-63 on Dec. 30, 2004...the Wildcats snapped a four-game slide in their last outing, an 88-74 East Coast Conference win over N.Y. Institute of Technology last Wednesday (Dec. 14) to improve to 6-4 overall this season. |
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| GAME INFORMATION & LINKS |
 Â Â Â Â VS Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  |
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Date:
Monday, December 19 |
Time:Â
11:00 a.m. |
Location:Â
Lumsden Gymnasium - Amherst, N.Y. |
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| Daemen Roster |
St. Michael's Roster |
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| Daemen Schedule |
St. Michael's Schedule |
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| Daemen Stats |
St. Michael's Stats |
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| LIVE STATS |
LIVE VIDEO |
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| EAST COAST CONFERENCE WEBSITE |
NORTHEAST-10 CONFERENCE WEBSITE |
EAST REGION INSIDERS WEBSITE |
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| SOCIAL MEDIA |
| Daemen Twitter:Â |
@DaemenAthletics, @DaemenMBB |
| Daemen Hashtags:Â |
#DCWildcatNation, #WNYsD2Team, #LiveBreatheDaemen, #beFIERCE |
| St. Michael's Twitter: |
@SMCAthletics, @SMC_MBB |
| East Coast Conference Twitter: |
@ECCSports |
| Northeast-10 Conference Twitter: |
@TheNortheast10 |
| East Region Basketball Insiders Twitter: |
@D2EastHoops |
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| RETURN OF THE MAC |
| Local hoops fixture Mike MacDonald returns to the bench for his third season as Daemen's head coach, and his 20th season overall as a collegiate head coach...in his first two seasons on the job, MacDonald has led the Wildcats to a 40-20 overall record...in his first season at the helm, MacDonald led Daemen to a 21-10 campaign which concluded with the United States Collegiate Athletic Association Division I national championship...he followed that up by leading Daemen to a 19-10 record and the program's first-ever postseason berth at the NCAA Division II level, qualifying for and advancing to the finals of the East Coast Conference Tournament...prior to beginning his stint at Daemen, MacDonald transformed the Division III program at Medaille into a perennial power, averaging 18 wins per season and advancing to the postseason six times in his eight years as head coach...MacDonald made his head coaching debut at the Division I level, leading the program at Canisius from 1997-2006...while there, MacDonald's teams racked up 108 wins making him the third all-time winningest coach in the program's history...the longtime bench boss opens the 2016-17 season with a career record of 296-246. |
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| DAEMEN SCOUTING REPORT (6-4, 1-3 ECC) |
| Daemen returns 12 players from its 2015-16 team which went 19-10 overall and 14-6 in East Coast Conference play, finishing second in the final regular season standings to earn the No. 2 seed in the ECC Tournament as the Wildcats made their first-ever postseason appearance at the NCAA Division II level...after receiving a bye into the semifinal round of the tourney, Daemen scored a wild 103-102 (OT) victory over sixth-seeded Mercy to advance to the ECC Tournament finals where their season came to an end with an 80-63 loss to top-seeded St. Thomas Aquinas...for the second straight year, the Wildcats open the season after graduating one of the top players in team history...last year at this time, the Wildcats were learning about life without two-time ECC Defensive Player of the Year Gerald Beverly...this time around, the Wildcats are without 6-foot-5 wing Torrence Dyck who led the ECC in scoring last season (21.9 ppg)...among the team's returners are five players who started at least 12 games last season, and a sixth - redshirt-senior guard Supreme Hannah - who was limited to just four games last year after making 28 starts in 2014-15...the group of returners is headlined by redshirt-senior forward Arif Mehmetaj who earned second-team All-ECC honors last season after averaging 15.2 points and 6.5 rebounds per game...Mehmetaj posted nine 20-point games and a team-best seven double-doubles last season while leading the team with 47 three-point field goals...he finished 12th in the league in scoring, 14th in rebounding and ninth in free throw percentage (80.2)...Hannah was averaging 11.5 points and 3.0 assists per game before he went down with a season-ending injury...he logged 33.4 minutes per game in 2014-15, averaging 10.5 points and 3.9 assists per game that season...redshirt-sophomore wing Deion Hamilton was a two-time ECC Rookie of the Week selection last season...he chipped in 8.0 points per game, including an average of 11.2 points in his 17 starts...among the team's new additions this season, redshirt-freshman Jeff Redband is expected to make an immediate impact...the Wildcats were picked fifth in the ECC preseason poll...Daemen, which got off to its first 5-0 start since the 2012-13 season, snapped a four-game slide with an 88-74 defeat of conference foe NYIT this past Wednesday (Dec. 14)...with the game tied at 39-39 early in the second half, Daemen embarked on an 18-2 run to take full control...redshirt-junior forward Aleks Miljenovic came off the bench to score 15 points in the win, leading a group of seven players that posted at least eight points, including five who reached double figures...included in that group was redshirt-senior guard/forward Jesse Lalka who made just the sixth start of his career, responding with a season-high 13 points...through the first 10 games of the season, Hannah leads the team in scoring (14.7 ppg) and assists (35)...he poured in a career-high 29 points in an overtime loss at UDC on Dec. 3...Mehmetaj scored a season-high 26 points in a 90-79 win at Edinboro on Nov. 23, and is producing 13.4 points and a team-best 5.0 rebounds per game...Hamilton, who missed the game against NYIT, is contributing 13.4 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game while shooting 51.6 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from long distance...Redband rounds out the Wildcats' double-figure scorers at 10.7 points per game...he leads the team in three-pointers with 25 and is shooting 41.7 percent from deep...additional production is coming from sophomore guard Darius Garvin (7.3 ppg, 4.0 rpg, team-high 13 steals), Miljenovic (7.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg) and senior guard Jaleo Wilkes (6.7 ppg, 2.6 apg, 11 steals)...the Wildcats enter Monday's game as one of the premier defensive teams in the ECC this season...they lead the lead in scoring defense, allowing just 69.9 points per game, while also ranking second in the league in field goal percentage defense (.405)...Daemen leads the ECC and ranks 16th nationally in three-point field goal percentage defense (.294). |
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| ST. MICHAEL'SÂ SCOUTING REPORT (1-8, 1-6 NE-10) |
| St. Michael's, located in Colchester, Vt., is a member of the Northeast-10 Conference...SMC is led by fourth-year head coach Josh Meyer who has guided the Purple Knights to a 44-47 record during his tenure to date...Meyer coached SMC into the NE-10 Conference Tournament in each of his first two seasons, posting 18 wins each year and advancing to the tourney semifinals in 2014-15...the Purple Knights are coming off a 7-19 campaign in 2015-16 which included wins in five of their last 12 contests...Meyer brings nine players from his 2015-16 roster, including three starters...headlining the returners is 6-5 senior forward Matt Bonds, a third-team All-NE-10 pick last season when he averaged a double-double (16.2 ppg, 12.3 rpg) and led the NE-10 in rebounding...also back are 6-5 sophomore guard Levi Holmes III and 6-0 senior guard Zaire Williams who each started more than 20 games in 2015-16...Holmes III was named to the NE-10 All-Rookie team after hitting 51 three-pointers and averaging 11.3 points per game...Williams was the team's top assist man, registering 74 helpers last year...also returning is 6-2 sophomore guard Derek Cheatom, a Buffalo native who played his scholastic ball at Park School just around the corner from Daemen...Cheatom appeared in 14 games last season, seeing 9.8 minutes of action and posting 4.0 points and 1.0 rebounds per game...the Purple Knights were picked eighth in the NE-10 Northeast Division preseason poll...SMC got off to a rocky start this year, dropping their first seven contests, including losses to ECC members St. Thomas Aquinas (96-88) and Mercy (89-71) on the opening weekend of the season...the Purple Knights got off the proverbial schneid with a 77-76 win at Bentley on Dec. 7...SMC has been idle since a 90-76 loss at regionally-ranked Southern New Hampshire on Dec. 10...scoring has not been an issue as the Purple Knights are producing 79.0 points per game, but they rank 300th among the 306 Division II teams in scoring defense, allowing 90.8 points per game to their opponents...Bonds has put together a solid start to the year individually, averaging 22.7 points and 11.6 rebounds per game...he again leads the NE-10 in rebounding while also ranking second in scoring, and his six double-doubles this season rank fifth nationally...he matched a season-high with 27 points while hauling in 16 boards in the win over Bentley...Holmes III has knocked down a team-best 26 three-pointers and is shooting an even 50 percent from behind the arc while producing 16.1 points per game...he made a season-high five triples and totaled 20 points in the recent loss at Southern New Hampshire...additional production is coming from Williams (7.2 ppg, team-best 4.2 apg) and senior guard David Sullivan (7.4 ppg)...Cheatom has seen action in all nine games, averaging 18.0 minutes, 4.2 points and 2.8 rebounds per outing. |
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| DAEMEN VS. ST. MICHAEL'S: THE HISTORY |
| All-Time:Â Monday's game marks the first-ever meeting between Daemen & St. Michael's |
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| SEEING RED-BAND |
| Redshirt-freshman forward Jeff Redband was named the ECC Rookie of the Week for games held Nov. 21-27...the 6-foot-7 sharp-shooter averaged 13.7 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game over three contests in the week, helping Daemen pick up a pair of wins...Redband shot 51.7 percent from the field and 55 percent from three-point range in the contests...he opened the week by scoring 20 points in Daemen's 90-79 win at Edinboro...Redband canned five of his six three-pointers in the first half, and added five rebounds in the win...two days later, Redband hit his first four shots from the field, including three from long distance, en route to a 16-point performance in Daemen's 69-57 defeat of Slippery Rock...he closed the week with five points, three rebounds and two blocks in a 70-61 road loss at Mercyhurst...for the season, Redband has started all 10 contests and is producing 10.7 points and 3.8 rebounds per game while leading the team with 25 three-pointers...his selection is the first weekly honor for a Daemen player this season...the Wildcats led the league in Rookie of the Week selections last season with six. |
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| MAC'S MILESTONE |
| Daemen's 90-79 win over Edinboro on Nov. 23 was the 300th in the career of Daemen head coach Mike MacDonald...now in his 20th season as a collegiate head coach, and his third at Daemen, MacDonald spent nine seasons leading the Division I program at Canisius where he totaled 108 wins to rank third all-time...he went on to transform the Division III program at Medaille into a perennial contender in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference, leaving there as the program's all-time leader in wins with 148...since arriving at Daemen, MacDonald has led the Wildcats to a 45-23 mark. |
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| A MOST VALUABLE RETURN |
| The 2016-17 season openers marked the return of redshirt-senior guard Supreme Hannah to the Daemen lineup...Hannah, who missed the final 25 games last season and both exhibition contests in early November, did not disappoint as he collected Most Valuable Player honors for the ECC-CACC Challenge...in a 75-64 win over Caldwell on Nov. 11, Hannah scored 14 points and dished a team-high four assists in helping Daemen capture its 15th consecutive win in a season opener...he followed that with a 21-point, four-assist outing in an 11-point dispatching of Dominican on Nov. 12, while logging a game-high 37 minutes...the output marked the third 20-point game of his career and he tied a career-high with nine field goals...Hannah has made 35 consecutive starts in games that he's appeared in, dating back to the 2014-15 season...since the start of that season, Hannah is averaging 10.9 points and 3.8 assists per game. |
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| BULLISH EFFORTÂ |
| In an exhibition game vs. Division I Buffalo on Nov. 4, Daemen led for more than 12 minutes in the second half before falling by five (87-82) in overtime...it marked the second time in the last three seasons that Division II Daemen has taken a Division I opponent to overtime in exhibition action...the last time ended in an 83-81 win in Mike MacDonald's Daemen debut which just happened to come in his return to the Koessler Athletic Center where he coached Canisius for 18 seasons, including nine as the head coach...this time around, redshirt-freshman Jeff Redband hit his sixth three-pointer with 26 ticks remaining to erase the Bulls' three-point lead and send the game to overtime...Redband finished with a team-high 22 points...in the overtime period, Darius Garvin hit a three-pointer with 1:15 left to pull the Wildcats within one (82-81) but, after a UB turnover, his go-ahead jumper attempt was off the mark, and the Bulls answered with an old-fashioned three-point play to essentially put the game out of reach...Deion Hamilton netted 16 points for the Wildcats, while Arif Mehmetaj and Jaleo Wilkes chipped in with 15 and 12 points, respectively. |
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| 20/20 |
| Daemen's 19-win season in 2015-16 snapped a string of four-straight 20-win seasons...the Wildcats have registered at least 20 wins nine times in the last 14 seasons...the high-water mark in that stretch was the Wildcats' 27-6 campaign in 2012-13 when they played an independent schedule while transitioning to NCAA Division II. |
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| DID YOU KNOW? |
| Daemen is 2-2 all-time in games against Northeast-10 Conference opponents...the only NE-10 teams that Daemen has played to date are Assumption (0-1) and Le Moyne (2-1)...Daemen also owns a win against current NE-10 member Pace, but that came before the Setters joined the league. |
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| ON THE HORIZON |
| Daemen returns from the holiday break to host regionally-ranked College of St. Rose, another NE-10 member, in a New Year's Eve matinee (12 p.m. tip-off)...that game will trigger a string of three home games over five days. |
