GAME #8
DAEMEN WILDCATS (4-3, 4-1 ECC) vs. MERCY MAVERICKS (1-4, 1-4 ECC)
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20
LUMSDEN GYMNASIUM (AMHERST, N.Y.) - 3:00 PM
NO SPECTATORS PERMITTED DUE TO COVID-19


FASTBREAK POINTS
1. Daemen plays its third game of the week Saturday when they welcome the Mercy Mavericks to Lumsden Gymnasium for an East Coast Conference contest. The teams will meet just once this weekend. A planned second game for Sunday was cancelled earlier this week.  

2. Daemen has won two straight games and sits in second place in the conference standings at 4-1. The Wildcats are coming off an 85-69 victory over rival Roberts Wesleyan on Wednesday as they avenged an earlier loss to the Redhawks. Daemen has now won 28 of the last 30 meetings with RWC dating back to the 2007-08 season.  

3. Mercy has dropped four of five games so far this season, including three to nationally ranked St. Thomas Aquinas. The Mavericks are coming off a 99-67 loss to STAC on Wednesday. Mercy features dynamic 6-6 freshman Kerwin Prince who ranks second among the ECC leaders in scoring (20.8 ppg) and rebounding (10.4 rpg).

4. Redshirt senior center Andrew Sischo, who recently became Daemen's all-time leading scorer, enters the game just one point shy of 2,000 and five rebounds shy of 1,000. Sischo stands to become the first player in program history to reach 2,000 points and just the third to reach 1,000 rebounds. 

5. Sischo enters the weekend as the leading scorer and rebounder among all Division II players, averaging 29.8 points and 14.8 rebounds per game. The Albany-area native has recorded 10 straight doubles (53 in his career), 12 straight 20-point games (51 in his career) and 57 straight 10-point games (89 in his career). He recently moved into the top five in scoring and rebounding among the ECC's all-time leaders.

MERCY SCOUTING REPORT

• Mercy returns six players from the 2019-20 team, including four who averaged more than 20 minutes per game. The Mavericks went 5-21 overall and 3-13 in ECC play last season.
• The Mavericks' biggest departure was perennial All-ECC selection Bryan Griffin who transferred to Division I Xavier where he's producing 4.8 points and 4.9 rebounds off the Musketeers' bench.
• Mercy has opened the season with one win in their first five games. Three of their four losses have come against ECC favorite and nationally ranked St. Thomas Aquinas.
• After dropping an 83-82 overtime heartbreaker to Molloy last Saturday, the Mavericks came back and defeated the Lions the following day, 92-66. It snapped an eight-game losing streak that dated back to last season.
• Freshman forward Kerwin Prince has been impressive thus far. He'll come into Saturday's game averaging 20.8 points and 10.4 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-6 Prince has been named the ECC Rookie of the Week twice this season and ranks second among the ECC leaders in scoring, rebounding and field goal percentage (.610).
• Fellow newcomer James Taylor, Jr., a transfer from Neosho County Community College, is producing 14.8 points per game and shooting 44% from three-point range.
• Additional production is coming from returners Brandon Wilson (9.4 ppg) and Garrett Kirkland (9.2 ppg) as well as newcomer Elijah Mitchell (8.8 ppg). Kirkland came off the bench to score a team-high 20 points in Mercy's win over Molloy.
• Whistles are a common theme in Mercy games this season as they lead the ECC in free throws made (17.0) and attempted (25.6) per game, and also in personal fouls per game (18.0).

SERIES HISTORY VS. MERCY
All-Time Series: Daemen 15-0
At Daemen: Daemen 7-0
Current Streak: Daemen Won 15
Last Meeting: Daemen 96, Mercy 79 | Feb. 16, 2020 | Amherst, N.Y.

UNPRECEDENTED SEASON
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc upon collegiate sports with postponements, pauses and cancelations. Daemen, which experienced its own 10-day pause in team activities due to a positive COVID-19 test result, was out of action for 328 days before making their long-awaited season debut on Jan. 29 vs. Gannon. A schedule that includes 12 games overall and 10 ECC contests precedes the ECC Championship which is slated for March 3-7. The limited schedule was comprised with the health and safety of all players, coaches and other Tier 1 personnel in mind, and in accordance with COVID-19 guidelines established by the NCAA. 

RETURN OF THE MAC
Mike MacDonald returns to the bench for his seventh season as Daemen's head coach, and his 24th overall as a collegiate head coach. Since beginning to roam the Daemen sidelines, MacDonald has led the Wildcats to a 133-54 overall record. The Wildcats have won at least 19 games in each of MacDonald's first six seasons, and the team's 129 victories in that span are the second most among all NCAA Division II programs in New York State, as well as all East Coast Conference teams. He recorded the 100th win of his Daemen tenure Feb. 10, 2019 against Queens, placing him in an elite fraternity of coaches that have achieved at least 100 wins in each of the NCAA's three divisions. He went on to be named the East Coast Conference, NABC District and Basketball Coaches Association of New York Division II Coach of the Year following the 2018-19 season. Before coming to Daemen, MacDonald transformed the Division III program at Medaille into a perennial powerhouse, 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 holds a career record of 390-280.

SUSTAINED SUCCESS
The Daemen program has been built on sustained success, winning at least 19 games in each of the last nine seasons. In that span (2011-20), which encompasses the end of Daemen's NAIA Era, its' NCAA transition period and the first five seasons of full NCAA Division II membership, the Wildcats have won 70% of their contests, going 176-75. Looking more recently, Daemen is 70-22 in the last three seasons (.761 winning percentage), and their 89 wins in the last four seasons is the most successful four-year span in program history. 

BACK-TO-BACK
Daemen has won 24 games (NCAA Era program record) and earned at-large bids to the NCAA tournament in each of the last two seasons. The team's 2019 bid was the first in program history, and the Wildcats made their NCAA tournament debut as the No. 5 seed in the East Region, falling in the opening round to fourth-seeded New Haven, 72-67. Daemen was awarded the No. 8 seed in the East Region, however the tournament was canceled before it even began due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

GOING STREAKING
Daemen has embarked on four winning streaks of at least nine games since the start of the 2018-19 season. Last season, the Wildcats put together an 11-game winning streak, covering games played Nov. 2 through Dec. 13 - the longest of Daemen's NCAA Era. 

DEFENDING THE DEN
Success on their home floor has been a staple of Daemen's rise within the NCAA Division II ranks. The Wildcats have won 10+ home games in eight of the last nine seasons, including identical 15-1 records in the last two seasons which established a new program benchmark for homecourt victories. Dating back to the 2017-18 season, Daemen has won 39 of their last 43 home games. Since joining the ECC (2013-14 season), Daemen is 57-10 in home conference games (.851 win %). The Wildcats are also 67-13 at home during the program's NCAA era (.838 win %). In the 20 seasons from 2000-01 through 2019-20, the Wildcats won 83% of all home games, going 220-45. 

POLL POSITION
Daemen has been among the nationally ranked teams for the third straight season. The Wildcats have been ranked as high as No. 21 in the Division II Sports Information Directors of America (D2SIDA) national media poll and have also received votes in the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) top-25 poll this season. The Wildcats have been ranked 18 times in the D2SIDA poll dating back to the 2018-19 season, rising as high as No. 8, a position they held for three successive weeks early last season. In addition, Daemen is also receiving votes in the D2SDA East Region media poll. The Wildcats have been ranked in 34 of the last 35 regional polls.

WALKING THE STAGE
Daemen has been hit hard by graduation, losing four starters - Breon Harris, Jay Sarkis, Jeff Redband and Joey Wallace - who were each 1,000-point scorers as well as All-ECC honorees at one point or another. Harris, Sarkis and Redband were well entrenched in the Wildcats' lineup, combining for 330 games and 297 starts in their respective careers, and played key roles in leading Daemen to 89 wins. 

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY
Daemen had won 17 consecutive season openers spanning 2002-18. That streak was snapped last season with their loss to No. 1 Northwest Missouri State. This season, back-to-back losses to Gannon put Daemen at 0-2 for the first time since the 2001-02 season.

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS
Redshirt senior center Andrew Sischo, the two-time East Coast Conference and East Region Player of the Year and a consensus All-American, headlines Daemen's returning players. Sischo has already cemented his place among Daemen's all-time great players by racking up 1,820 points, 906 rebounds and a program-record 722 field goals in his first three collegiate seasons. Sischo's 2019-20 season was one for the record books as well. He set Daemen and ECC records for points (773) and field goals (298) in a season, led the country in total rebounds (362) and double-doubles (22) and became the first Division II player since the 2010-11 season to average at least 24 points and 11 rebounds per game while shooting at least 64% from the field. He enters the season having scored 20+ points 45 times in his career, including a record 47-point outburst in the opening round of the ECC Championship tournament last March. Already this season, he's been named a Preseason All-American by Basketball Times, as well as the ECC Preseason Player of the Year - an honor he's now earned in three straight seasons. 

DOUBLE-DOUBLE YOUR DELIGHTMENT
Andrew Sischo has been a double-double machine throughout his career, racking up 53 of them in 95 games - the most for a Daemen player since Gerald Beverly totaled 46 double-doubles in his career spanning 2011-15. In his sophomore and junior seasons alone, Sischo recorded a double-double in more two-thirds of the games he appeared in (39 double-doubles in 58 games). Sischo's 22 double-doubles in 2019-20 led all Division II players.  

BEST OF THE BEST
During Daemen's game vs. Roberts Wesleyan on Feb. 11, 2021, Andrew Sischo became the program's all-time leading scorer, surpassing the 29-year old benchmark of 1,962 points set by Robert Robinson. In 95 career games, Sischo has totaled 1,999 points and 995 rebounds. He stands as the only player in program history with at least 1,800 points and 900 rebounds. Already the program's all-time leader in field goals (794), he also ranks fourth in rebounding. In addition, Sischo has placed himself among impressive company within ECC history, ranking second in field goals and fifth in both scoring and rebounding.

VETERAN PRESENCE
Daemen will turn to graduate transfer Sean Fasoyiro and senior guard Kyle Harris to provide a veteran presence on a relatively young roster. A 6-foot-3 guard, Fasoyiro appeared in 81 games over the last three seasons for Franklin Pierce, helping them to a 45-38 record. In 28 games last season, including eight starts, Fasoyiro produced career-highs in scoring (7.8 ppg), minutes (21.8 mpg), field goal percentage (45.7), three-point percentage (37.5), rebounding (5.0 rpg) and assists (1.3). The Wildcats have had success in recent years on the transfer market, getting successful one-year contributors such as Joey Wallace and Quinn Lee Yaw. Now in his second season with the program, Harris is Daemen's most experienced returning player after center Andrew Sischo. Harris appeared in all 32 games and made nine starts last season when he shot 38% from three-point range and averaged 4.4 points per game. 

ALL-WNY PEDIGREE
Mike MacDonald and his staff made a sizable dent in the available WNY talent pool by inking 6-foot guard Juston Johnson, 6-foot-6 forward Justin Hemphill and 5-foot-11 guard Tyler Hind in the program's 2020 recruiting class. Johnson and Hemphill represent the first All-WNY first team selections to commit to Daemen out of high school since Mark Coppola in 2010. Hind, a second team All-WNY brings a stellar resume of his own, including 2,244 points which ranks eighth all-time among WNY players. He also set a new WNY record with 400 three-pointers in his career and was named the New York State Class C Player of the Year as a senior.

585 ----> 716
Daemen has had great success recruiting out of the Rochester area through the years. In fact, of the 11 Daemen players that have earned All-ECC honors since the 2013-14 season, eight of them have been products of Section V high schools. The Wildcats are hoping for continued production from the Rochester pipeline as freshmen guards Andrew Mason and Tony Arnold join the list of Section V standouts to choose Daemen. Both were All-Greater Rochester selections who graduated as the all-time leading scorers at their respective high schools. Arnold led the Eastridge, the same school that produced former Daemen guard Supreme Hannah, to their first sectional title in some 56 years last winter. Daemen has signed 11 All-Greater Rochester players since 2010. 

HEY ROOKIE
Freshman guard Andrew Mason earned ECC Rookie of the Week honors after averaging 9.0 points and 4.5 rebounds in season-opening games vs. Gannon on Jan. 29 and 31. Mason is the sixth Daemen player to be named ECC Rookie of the Week since the Wildcats joined the conference in 2013. Mason netted 25 points in Daemen's 103-69 win at D'Youville on Feb. 15 – the most for a Daemen freshman since the 2017-18 season when teammate Andrew Sischo posted a pair of 25+ point games.

OPTING OUT
Daemen has had eight players exercise their right to opt out of the 2020-21 season due to COVID-19. These players include guard Tajmin Holt, forward Ryan Bradley and center Chris Luke who all saw regular minutes last season. Each player's decision has been fully supported by the Daemen coaching staff and athletics administration.

A NEW STREAK
Daemen's 80-75 loss to Roberts Wesleyan on Feb. 11 snapped a series winning streak that had reached 20 games over a span of 10 years. It was the Redhawks' first win over Daemen since Feb. 15, 2011, and also their first home win in the series since Feb. 21, 2007. Daemen earned some redemption with an 85-69 win over RWC on Feb. 17. The Wildcats have won 28 of the last 30 meetings overall and 11 straight home meetings in the series.

NEXT JUMP BALL
Daemen plays its final regular season home game Wednesday when they welcome D'Youville back to Lumsden Gymnasium.