AMHERST, N.Y. - A dominant effort on both ends of the court lifted the Daemen College men's basketball team to an 84-47 victory over Mercy College today at Lumsden Gymnasium on the Daemen Campus.

It marked Daemen's final home game of the 2021-22 regular season and the program honored Ziv Basden (Nassau, Bahamas), Sean Fasoyiro (Houston, Tex.), Kyle Harris (Buffalo, N.Y.), Sayeed Osorio (New York, N.Y.), Andrew Sischo (Guilderland, N.Y.) and Zecaree Veiga (Riverside, R.I.) during a pre-game Senior Day ceremony.

Daemen improved to 18-7 overall and 15-1 in the league with the win, while Mercy saw its three game winning streak snapped and dropped to 5-18 overall and 5-11 in the league. The Wildcats remain tied atop the ECC standings with St. Thomas Aquinas College (22-4, 15-1 ECC) with one week left in the regular season. STAC posted a 94-55 win at D'Youville College this afternoon.

Daemen entered the game ranked regionally and nationally. Daemen is ranked third in the NCAA Division II Sports Information Directors of America (D2SIDA) East Region media poll and fifth in the NCAA Division II East Region rankings. The Wildcats also entered the national rankings for the first time this season after being ranked 24th in the most recent National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division II Top-25 poll.

After a slow start, the Wildcat offense kick into gear over the final 12 minutes of the first half. Daemen took a 12-4 lead following a three-pointer by junior Nick MacDonald (Amherst, N.Y.) with 12:12 left in the half, and Daemen eventually  increased its lead to 17 points, 28-11 after MacDonald found Sischo for a layup with 6:06 left before intermission. A conventional three-point play by Sischo with just under two minutes left in the half gave the Wildcats a 37-15 lead and the hosts would go on to take a 43-16 lead into the locker room.

The teams traded points early in the second half and the Daemen lead was 28 points, 54-26, when the Wildcats went on a 19-2. A dunk by Veiga with seven minutes to play capped the run and gave Daemen its largest lead of the game, 73-28.
 

IMPACT PLAYERS

• Four players scored in double figures for the Wildcats.
• Fasoyiro went 7-of-8 from the field and finished with 18 points, three rebounds and two steals in just 21 minutes of action.
• Sischo played just 23 minutes and totaled 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting. He has scored 10+ points in 90 of his last 91 games and in 122 games total for his career.
• Veiga played 18 minutes and scored a season-high 16 points.
• MacDonald went 3-of-6 from downtown and finished with 13 points. The Wildcats are now 7-1 on the year when he scores in double figures.
• Redshirt junior Joey Atkins (Watervliet, N.Y.) was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field and totaled nine points, a block and two steals in just 12 minutes of action.
• Junior Elijah Mitchell paced the Mavericks with 10 points, four rebounds and two steals.

GAME NOTES

• Daemen returns 11 players, including all five starters, from their 2020-21 team that won the NCAA Division II East Region Championship and advanced to the Elite Eight.
• The 47 points allowed ranks as the fewest points allowed by the Wildcats during their NCAA Division II era (2015-present). The previous mark was 49 points during a 60-49 win over Dominican College at the start of the 2016-17 season.
• Daemen has now prevailed in all 18 meetings between the two teams. It is Daemen's longest active winning streak against any single opponent. In the series, 13 of the 18 meetings have been decided by 10 points or more, including the last six in a row.
• Daemen shot 56-percent (17-for-30) in the first half and finished 51-percent (30-for-58) from the field overall. The Wildcats shot 29-percent (7-of-24) from three point land.
• The Mavericks shot just 25-percent (7-for-28) from the field in the first half and finished 17-of-64 (27%) from the field overall. Mercy attempted 20 three-pointers and made just five.
• Daemen finished with an advantage in points off turnovers (24-7), points in the paint (42-19) and fast break points (20-6).
• A two-time consensus All-American and three-time ECC Player of the Year, Sischo was recently named to the Bevo Francis Award Top 50 Watch List. He is NCAA Division II's active leader in career points (2,775), rebounds (1,425) and double-doubles (80). He is the all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Daemen and ECC history, as well as the all-time leading scorer among all NCAA men's basketball programs in the state of New York. During a win at Bridgeport earlier this year he became only the 19th player in NCAA Division II history to reach 2,700 career points. Sischo ranks 18th in career points and sixth in career rebounds all-time in Division II. 
• Tonight's game marked the 129th of Sischo's career. He is one of only two players to appear in that many contests for Daemen and is just one more appearances away from becoming the program's all-time leader in games played.  
• Fasoyiro scored his 1,000th career point during a recent win over D'Youville. He totaled 494 points during his three seasons at Franklin Pierce and has netted 544 points in 41 games at Daemen (13.3 ppg). Daemen is now 28-13 with Fasoyiro in the starting lineup.

NEXT JUMP BALL

The Wildcats close out the regular season later this week when they travel to Molloy College (Feb. 24) and Queens College (Feb. 26) for conference games.

Daemen College features the premier NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 18 intercollegiate teams. For the latest information on Daemen Athletics, follow the Wildcats via social media on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, or sign up to receive customizable news alerts, e-mail newsletters and weekly schedule alerts.

Follow the Daemen College men's basketball program on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @DaemenMBB.