Top-Seeded Wildcats Host Molloy In ECC Semifinals

3/7/2025 10:33:00 AM

By: CONTACT: Mary Margaret Johnson, Director of Athletics Communications | mmjohnso@daemen.edu

JUMP BALL
For the fifth consecutive season, the top-seeded Daemen University women's basketball team will host the 2025 East Coast Conference Championship Tournament at Lumsden Gymnasium as they host the #5 seed Molloy Lions in the first of two semifinal match ups on Saturday, March 8 at 12 PM. The Wildcats, who earned the top seed in the tournament after winning their sixth straight ECC regular season title and a bye in the first round of the tournament, come into this weekend with a 19-7 overall record after posting a 15-1 record in ECC regular season play. Fifth-seeded Molloy beat #4 seed D'Youville in the quarterfinals on Wednesday to punch their ticket to this weekend's tournament with a 16-14 record after going 8-8 in ECC play this season. The winner of Saturday's semifinal game will play the winner of #2 Staten Island and #3 Mercy in the ECC Championship game on Sunday at noon.
2025 ECC Women's Basketball Championship Bracket - Semifinal Round

2025 ECC Women's Basketball Championship Bracket - Semifinal Round

6X REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONS
The Wildcats secured their sixth consecutive ECC regular season title on Feb. 16 with a 61-52 victory over Queens after going 14-0 to open ECC play this season. Daemen closed out the regular season with a 15-1 ECC record, the Wildcats' best conference record since the 2021-22 season when they finished with a 16-1 ECC record. With their sixth straight conference title, Daemen tied Saint Rose for the longest regular season win streak (1995-2000), with the Golden Knights taking home the title in six consecutive seasons.

DAEMEN IN THE ECC TOURNAMENT
The back-to-back-to-back ECC Tournament champion Wildcats have a 9-3 record in the ECC Tournament, and have won four of the last five tournament titles, earning rings in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Daemen has earned five consecutive NCAA Division II Tournament bids from 2020 to 2024, and last season traveled back to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight for the second time in four years after clinching their second East Region title.

POSTSEASON AWARDS
Three Wildcats were named to the 2024-25 All-ECC Team along with head coach Jenepher Banker earning the title of ECC Coach of the Year for the fourth time in her career. Junior guard Claire Pikett (Holland, N.Y.) earns First Team All-Conference honors for the first time in her career after starting all 26 games and putting together a very successful junior campaign, scoring in the double-figures in 16 games and averaging 11 points per game while shooting 34.9% from the field and 31.7% beyond the arc. Pikett ranks second on the team at the boards, averaging 6.3 rebounds per game and is third in the ECC with 1.9 blocks per game (49 total) which ranks 26th in NCAA Division II women's basketball. She also ranks sixth in the league with 2.0 steals/game (51 total). Graduate student guard Danielle DiCintio (Somers, N.Y.) was named to the All-ECC Second Team after making an immediate impact on the Wildcats in her first season on the team. DiCintio led the Wildcats and ranks eighth in the league in scoring, averaging 12.4 points per game while shooting 38.8% from the field. The league leader in three pointers per game (2.8), DiCintio ranks third in the league with a 36.6% three-point field goal percentage after going 74-of-202 from beyond the arc. She has shot in the double-digits in 16 games this season, including scoring a season-high 22 points three separate times (vs. Assumption on Nov. 9, vs. Chestnut Hill on Nov. 21 and vs. D'Youville on Feb. 22). She tallied her 1,000th career point this year. Ne'vaeh Buntley (Rochester, N.Y.), a 5-foot-10 freshman forward, earns Third Team All-ECC honors after a stellar freshman campaign. Making 15 starts but appearing in all 26 games for the Wildcats, Buntley surged in the second half of the year and finished the regular season ranked third on the team in scoring, averaging 9.9 points per game along with 5.4 rebounds per game, also good for third on the team. The freshman phenom is shooting an impressive 40.6% from the field and added 23 triples over the regular season. Buntley scored in the double-figures in 12 games this season and dropped a career-high 23 points against Molloy on Feb. 14 after going 8-of-12 from the field and 5-of-8 beyond the arc.

POLL POSITION
Daemen is ranked second in the East Region in the third and final NCAA regional rankings, released on Wednesday by the regional advisory committee. The East Region consists of the top teams from the ECC, the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference, and the Northeast-10 Conference, and the regional rankings are used to determine at-large bids to the East Regional portion of the NCAA Tournament following conference tournaments this weekend. The full 64-team bracket will be released in the 2025 NCAA Selection Show on Sunday, March 9 at 10:30 PM on NCAA.com.

SEASON RECAP
After graduating four seniors from the 2024 Elite Eight team, the young group of Wildcats started off the season slow, 0-3 with losses to a pair of nationally ranked teams in #20/#14 Assumption and #11/#3 Gannon, with just one starter and three players that saw playing time last season. Daemen got their footing after their trio of losses and rattled off an eight-game win streak, including big wins over regionally ranked Saint Anselm, 55-49, and Holy Family, 55-53, and opened up ECC play with a 4-0 record. The Wildcats then traveled to the Hawaiian Islands over winter break to play two games in the Hoops In Hawaii Classic where they fell against RV Alaska Anchorage, host Hawaii Pacific, and in their return to Lumsden Gymnasium, dropped their third straight game to RV Indiana (Pa.). That would be the final losing streak the Wildcats would go on this season. Daemen put together a 10-game win streak in conference play and won their sixth consecutive ECC regular season title, and after dropping one ECC match against crosstown rival D'Youville, the Wildcats closed out the season with a 29-point victory over Roberts Wesleyan to end the year with a 19-7 overall record and 15-1 record in ECC play. The Wildcats lead the league in team defense (55.7 ppg, 24th in NCAA Division II women's basketball) while averaging 61.5 ppg offensively on the year.

HOME, SWEET HOME
Everyone's goal is to win at home, but Daemen's home court advantage is hard to beat, with the Wildcats putting together a 10-1 at Lumsden Gymnasium this season. In Daemen's NCAA Division II era (2015-present), the Wildcats are 87-27 at home (.763). Since the beginning of the 2018-19 season, the Wildcats own a 70-8 record at Lumdsen Gymnasium, including two season with undefeated home records (9-0 in 2019-20, 12-0 in 2022-23). Perfect at home this season with the exception of the 74-77 loss to RV Indiana (Pa.) on Jan. 3, the Wildcats are even more impressive at home in the postseason, and have not dropped a postseason game at Lumsden since falling to Roberts Wesleyan 59-53 in the 2021 ECC Championship. Daemen owns a 9-1 record in postseason play at home since the 2020-21 season.

SCOUTING THE LIONS
Molloy comes into the tournament weekend weekend as the fifth seed after topping #4 seed D'Youville on the Saints' home court, 72-59 in the quarterfinals on Wednesday to punch their ticket to Lumsden. Winners of four of their last five games, the Lions are 16-14 on the year and finished with an 8-8 record in ECC play in the regular season. Touting the ECC's top scoring offense, the Lions average 64.5 points per game and are led offensively by Third Team All-ECC 5-foot-11 senior forward Samantha Muller with 12.4 ppg and 5-foot-11 junior guard Sophia Yearwood who averages 10 ppg and leads the Lions with a 41.3% shooting percentage on the year. 6-foot-2 senior center Danielle Hippner leads the ECC and ranks second in NCAA Division II women's basketball with 104 total blocks and averages 3.47 blocks/game (3rd most in the country).

SERIES HISTORY
The Wildcats are 21-4 all-time against the Lions and have won the last 11 meetings, sweeping the Lions in both regular season match ups this year. This will be the third time the Wildcats and Lions meet in the postseason and first since the 2021-22 season. Daemen is 1-1 against Molloy in the ECC Tournament.

Daemen features the premier NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 17 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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