AMHERST, N.Y. - The Daemen College men's basketball team drilled 14 three-pointers en route to a 97-52 victory over D'Youville College tonight at Lumsden Gymnasium on the Daemen Campus. Daemen has now registered 10 or more three-pointers in eight of its last 11 games, and tonight marked the third-straight game that the Wildcats have made 14 three-pointers.

Redshirt senior Andrew Sischo (Guilderland, N.Y.) was limited to just three field goals on the night but still managed to total 13 points and a season-high 21 rebounds. Sischo entered the game as the ECC leader in scoring average (22.3 ppg) and rebounds per game (13.1 rpg). Graduate student Sean Fasoyiro (Houston, Tex.) scored a team-high 15 points for the Wildcats, including the 1,000th point of his career.

Daemen extended its winning streak to 12 straight games and remained atop the East Coast Conference standings with a perfect 14-0 league record. The Wildcats improved to 17-6 overall. Daemen has won 21 of its last 23 conference games dating back to the start of last season, and its current 12 game winning streak ranks as the longest among all NCAA Division II East region teams. D'Youville (2-19, 1-12 ECC) is competing as an ECC member for the second season as the Saints continue to transition from NCAA Division III to Division II.

Daemen entered the game ranked fifth in the NCAA Division II Sports Information Directors of America (D2SIDA) East Region Men's Basketball Media Poll. The Wildcats are also receiving votes for the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Top-25 Poll.

The teams traded baskets for the first five minutes and Daemen held a 10-9 lead when back-to-back three-pointers by Fasoyiro and sophomore Andrew Mason (Webster, N.Y.) sparked the Wildcats on a 17-4 run. Fifteen of the 17 points came via five three-pointers, and a triple by junior Nick MacDonald (Amherst, N.Y.) with 10:12 left in the half capped the spurt and gave the hosts a 27-13 lead. D'Youville quickly cut the lead to 10 points, 28-18, but the Saints then went scoreless for three minutes and the Wildcats took advantage with an 8-0 run—all of which came from the charity stripe. The teams traded baskets the final five minutes of the half and Daemen took a 47-28 lead into intermission.

Daemen secured the win with a 13-2 run at the start of the second half. A conventional three-point play by Fasoyiro with 15:34 left to play capped the run and gave the Wildcats a 60-30 lead. The Daemen lead eventually grew to 42 points, 72-30, midway through the second half and D'Youville would come no closer than 38 points over the final 10 minutes.
 

IMPACT PLAYERS

• Eleven of the 12 players who saw action for Daemen scored in the game.
• Sischo played just 20 minutes, connected on 3-of-12 shots and made 7-of-11 from the charity stripe en route to his NCAA Division II-leading 19th double-double of the year. He came just two rebounds shy of equaling his career high (23), which he posted against Molloy on Feb. 16, 2018. He has scored 10+ points in 88 of his last 89 games and in 120 games total for his career.
• Fasoyiro finished with 15 points, eight rebounds and three assists in 23 minutes of action. He has now scored in double figures in nine of his last 11 games.
• Mason went 3-of-5 from behind the arc and totaled 13 points and four rebounds.
• Graduate student Kyle Harris (Buffalo, N.Y.) went 3-of-6 from downtown and totaled 13 points, three rebounds, three assists and two blocks.
• Junior Ryan Salzberg (Manlius, N.Y.) added eight points, three rebounds, four assists and two steals.
• Graduate student Zecaree Veiga (Riverside, R.I.) added a season-high 11 points in just 15 minutes off the bench, while senior Sayeed Osorio (New York, N.Y.) scored a career-high eight points in just eight minutes of action.
• Freshman forward Jared Sullivan paced the Saints with 18 points and seven rebounds.

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.
• Daemen finished 32-for-69 from the field (46%) overall and went 14-of-28 from behind the arc. D'Youville made just 18-of-63 shots (29%) overall and went just 2-of-14 from downtown.
• Daemen entered the game ranked sixth in Division II for three-point field goal percentage defense and has now held 14 opponents to less than 30% downtown shooting this season. 
• Daemen finished with 22 assists tonight and has now dished out 20 or more assists in five of its last seven games. The Wildcats have recorded 15 or more assists in 14 of their last 15 games. 
• Daemen is off to its best start in conference play (14-0) since winning its first eight league games in 2003-04 when the Wildcats were competing as a member of the now-defunct American Mideast Conference of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
• This marks the third time in the last four seasons that Daemen has put together a winning streak of at least 10 games. 
• Daemen's 14 straight conference wins mark the second-longest streak since the program joined the ECC. The longest came in the program's inaugural ECC campaign (2013-14) when the Wildcats won their final 16 conference games and won the regular season ECC title with a 17-3 record. 
• A two-time consensus All-American and three-time ECC Player of the Year, Sischo was recently named to the Bevo Francis Award Top 100 Watch List. He is NCAA Division II's active leader in career points (2,727), rebounds (1,411) and double-doubles (79). 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 this past weekend he became only the 19th player in NCAA Division II history to reach 2,700 career points. Sischo ranks 19th in career points and sixth in career rebounds all-time in Division II. 
• Tonight's game marked the 127th of Sischo's career. He is one of only three players to appear in that many contests for Daemen and is just three more appearances away from becoming the program's all-time leader in games played.  
• Fasoyiro entered tonight just eight points shy of 1,000 for his career. He totaled 494 points during his three seasons at Franklin Pierce and has netted 513 points in 39 games at Daemen (13.2 ppg). Daemen is now 27-12 with Fasoyiro in the starting lineup and 12-2 this season when he records at least three assists. 
• Harris reached double figures for the ninth time in the last 14 games. He's now connected on 32 of his last 61 three-point attempts (52%). 
• Mason has made at least two three-pointers in 19 of his 21 games this season. He leads the team with 54 three-point field goals. He entered today's game shooting 49% from three-point range, ranking first in the ECC and second in Division II.

NEXT JUMP BALL

The Wildcats are idle until Feb. 18 when they host St. Thomas Aquinas College in a key ECC game.

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.

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