AMHERST, N.Y. -- Step right up, get your tickets here! Tickets are officially on sale for the Daemen University men's basketball exhibition game against St. John Fisher at the KeyBank Center! The Wildcats and Cardinals will square off at the home of the Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bandits on Saturday, October 17 at 1:30 PM.

You can purchase your tickets here.

Daemen kicks off the 2026-27 campaign at the KeyBank Center for the second consecutive year after facing off against Nazareth in an exhibition at the KBC in 2025. The season opening exhibition game will be the fifth time in program history that the Wildcats square up with the Cardinals, and the first time since the 1987-88 season. St. John Fisher made history this past season in the Empire 8 Conference Championship Tournament, becoming the first No. 8 seed in league history to beat a No. 1 seed. They ended the year with a 13-14 overall record after falling in the conference tournament semifinals. 

The exhibition game will be the first chance for Wildcat fans to see new head coach Ryan Grandits and his squad in action. Hired as the seventh head coach in program history, Grandits made his return to Main Street in April after spending the 2025-26 season as the head coach of Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pa. Grandits, the longtime top assistant under former head coach Mike MacDonald, inherited a program that has gone 61-3 over the last two seasons, won a pair of ECC titles, gone undefeated in conference play in back-to-back seasons and earned the East Region title for the first time since 2021.

The Wildcats return seven players from the 2025-26 campaign. Redshirt senior forward Phil Nwugwo (Rochester, N.Y.) highlights the returners after a breakout redshirt junior season where he finished sixth on the team in scoring, averaging 8.9 points and 4.8 rebounds per game along with shooting an impressive 61.9% from the field and totaling 38 blocks defensively. 2025-26 newcomers Nakyhi Harris (Buffalo, N.Y.) and Jaiden Harrison (Buffalo, N.Y.) also return to the team after playing solid minutes in their first season with the Wildcats. Grandits rounded out the roster by adding nine players, eight incoming freshmen and redshirt junior transfer Trevor Barrett (Cary, N.Y.) who comes to Daemen after spending his first two years at the University of Charleston in West Virginia.