AMHERST, N.Y. -- Daemen University men's basketball coach
Mike MacDonald has announced that the Wildcats will take on Nazareth University in an exhibition game played at the KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo prior to the start of the 2025-26 season. The game will take place on Saturday, October 25 at 3:30 PM prior to the Division I exhibition game between the University at Buffalo and Syracuse University which will play at 7 PM.
"We are excited to have the chance to once again play a game in the KeyBank Center. Plus, we are excited to be the first team in Western New York to play a game this coming season," MacDonald said. "This exhibition game against Nazareth -- one of the top Division III programs in the country -- will get us ready for our very demanding schedule and will be a great tip-off to the 2025-26 college basketball season.
"We are hopeful Western New York basketball fans will come to the arena for the beginning of what we hope will be a really exciting season for the Daemen Wildcats and many others!"
Tickets to the Oct. 25 exhibition game will be available by presale on Wednesday, August 27 from 10 AM to 10 PM. The public sale is scheduled for Thursday, August 28 at 10 AM. Tickets can be found
here.
This will mark the second time that Daemen has faced Division III Nazareth in program history. The two teams previously met during the 1999-2000 season with the Wildcats posting an 88-75 victory over Nazareth on Nov. 19, 1999. In MacDonald's 11-year tenure at Daemen, the Wildcats have squared off against Canisius College, Siena College, Syracuse University, the university at Buffalo and the University of Pennsylvania in exhibition games. Daemen posted an electric 67-61 win over UB in the season opening exhibition game a year ago, marking the Wildcats' first win over the Bulls in the history of the program.
Nazareth is coming off a season in which they went 17-10 overall and 11-5 in Empire 8 play. Averaging 77 points per game in 2024-25, the Golden Flyers featured four players that averaged double-digit points, including rising senior guard Jaylen Savage, the '24-25 Empire 8 Player of the Year, who led the team with 21 points per game while shooting 44% from the field and 40% beyond the arc and was a finalist for the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division III Player of the Year a season ago.
Daemen put together their best season in program history in 2024-25, setting a program record for single-season wins with 28 after going 28-1 and spending four weeks ranked as the No. 1 team in the NABC poll for the first time in program history. The Wildcats collected their first East Coast Conference Championship in program history with an 88-80 win over St. Thomas Aquinas on March 9. Daemen's 28 game winning streak was the longest this season of any Division I, II or III men's basketball team across the nation and set a new program record for consecutive wins. The 'Cats 28 wins also marked the seventh consecutive full season that they earned 20-or-more wins, the longest active streak of any Western New York school. Daemen joined C.W. Post (1989-90 & 2008-09), Adelphi (2000-01) and Philadelphia U. (1992-93 & 1993-94) as the only four schools in ECC history to finish the regular season undefeated as the Wildcats went 25-0, winning by an average of 22.6 points. The Cats also set the record for the largest postseason win during the Division II era (2015-present) with a 90-57 win over Staten Island in the semifinal round of the ECC Championship on March 8. Daemen, who was ranked within the top five in at least one national poll dating back to Dec. 17, claimed their third ECC Regular Season Title and earned the right to host the ECC Tournament in Lumsden Gymnasium for the first time in program history. MacDonald and the Wildcats also hosted the 2025 NCAA East Regional at home, becoming the first ECC team since former conference member Bridgeport during the 2020 season to be tabbed as NCAA East Region Tournament hosts.
13 Wildcats return for MacDonald for the upcoming 2025-26 season, including all four players that earned All-ECC honors during the 2024-25 campaign.
Justin Hemphill (Buffalo, N.Y.) and
Benjamin Bill (Hamburg, N.Y.) landed on the ECC first team,
Justin Glover (Buffalo, N.Y.) was named tabbed to the second team and
Zach Philipkoski (New Hartford, N.Y.) was a third team selection. Bill became just the second consensus All-American in program history as he was named to the NABC Division II All-America Team and D2CCA Third Team All-American while also being tabbed to the Bevo Francis Top 25 watch list.
Daemen University 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.
Follow the Daemen men's basketball program on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at @DaemenMBB.
