Bulldogs open 2016-17 campaign at Notre Dame Saturday at 12:00 p.m.

GAME NOTES

SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- The Bryant University men's basketball team tips off the 2016-17 season Saturday at Notre Dame, the only school in the country to make it to the Elite 8 in each of the last two seasons. The game is scheduled to start at 12:00 p.m. and can be seen on ACC Network Extra or WatchND.tv. 

THE SERIES
Saturday's contest marks the third clash between the Irish and the Bulldogs and the third being played in Indiana. Notre Dame has taken the first two contests, but the matchup in 2013 was only an 11-point victory for the ACC constituent. Senior forward Dan Garvin had seven points, six rebounds and two blocks as a freshman in that contest.     

SCOUTING THE FIGHTING IRISH
Notre Dame has been one of the most consistent programs in the land over the last two years, with consecutive trips to Elite Eight. The Irish lost its top two scorers from 2015-16 in Demetrius Jackson to the NBA Draft and bigman Zach Auguste to graduation, as the latter was also the team's top rebounder and rim protector. But the Irish return three of their five starters from a season ago and three of their top five scorers. Seniors V.J. Beachem and Steve Vasturia were two of three Irish players to start all 36 games last year and averaged 12.0 and 11.4 points per game, respectively. Junior Bonzie Colson started 24 of his 36 games played and averaged 11.1 points while grabbing 6.7 boards per contest. Filling the voids of Jackson and Auguste appear to be junior point guard Matt Farrell and bigman Martinas Geben. Farrell started all four NCAA Tournament games last season, averaging over 26 minutes with 6.0 points and 3.0 assists. Geben has been a force down low in Notre Dame's two exhibition wins, averaging 11.5 points, 8.0 caroms and 2.5 blocks.     

BRYANT vs. THE ACC
Bryant is 1-9 all-time against current members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, with its only victory coming during the 2012-13 campaign in a 56-54 triumph over Boston College in Chestnut Hill. The Bulldogs have battled five different members of the ACC, including five matchups with Boston College, one apiece against Maryland, Pitt and Duke, and two against Notre Dame.  Bryant has played an ACC school each year since joining the Division I ranks in 2008. 

OPENING NIGHT
Since the inaugural season of the Bryant men's basketball program in 1963-64, Bulldog teams are 27-26 (.509) all-time in season openers. Bryant was victorious in the program's first eight season openers and did not suffer an opening-day defeat until the 1971-72 campaign. But the Bulldogs have not found a win in the season's first contest since 2005-06, when they climbed over Adelphi, 70-62. The Bulldogs are winless in Division I season openers dating back to the 2008-09 season, and Bryant is 6-11 in its last 17 after a113-75 loss to then-reigning national champ and No. 4 Duke in last season's debut. The game at Notre Dame to kick off 2016-17 will mark the eighth-straight season that Bryant has opened the year on the road. 

THE 2016-17 BULLDOGS
Aiming to make it four postseason appearances in five years, the Bryant University men's basketball team turns to a handful of underclassmen that it hopes will guide it back to prominence in the Northeast Conference. Led by the return of reigning NEC Rookie of the Year Marcel Pettway and fellow All-NEC Rookie Team selection Nisre Zouzoua the Bulldogs have an abundance of youthful talent ready to compete at a high level. The Bulldogs will rely on the return of their top three scorers that includes Zouzoua and Pettway along with junior wing Hunter Ware, who finished second with 12.7 points per game on 36.7 percent shooting from downtown in 29 starts which leads this year's returners. One of just three seniors on this year's roster, forward Dan Garvin will look to cap off a productive career in his final campaign wearing the Black and Gold. As the top defensive presence at the rim, Garvin averaged 10.2 points per game and led the team with 1.3 blocks per game and 8.0 rebounds per contest last year. Also in the mix for a big role is junior forward Gus Riley, who averaged over 13 points per game over the final two contests and established himself as a threat from the outside. The Bulldogs add six freshmen to this year's cavalry, including a pair of guards in Ikenna Ndugba and Adam Grant. The two will compete for time at point guard, as Bryant will have to find a new floor general following the graduation of the NEC's top assist man in 2015-16, Shane McLaughlin ('16). Freshman guard Tanner Johnson is expected to see time, while seniors Justin Brickman and Terrill Toe provide stability and experience in the backcourt. Frosh forward Sebastian Townes is also expected to see quality minutes on the interior.   

MEET THE PUPPIES
The six-man freshman class is the second largest in Bryant's Division I history, and the largest since 2013-14, which also happens to be this year's senior class. Head coach Tim O'Shea welcomed seven freshmen in 2009-10. Monty Urmilevicius is a lengthy 6-foot-8 forward and is joined by two athletic guards in Ikenna Ndugba and Adam Grant. Guard Tanner Johnson stands at 6-foot-5 and will provide additional scoring from the perimeter, while 6-foot-6 Sebastian Townes weighs in at 240 and is a skilled player on the inside. If those measurements remind you of someone, you might be thinking of sophomore Marcel Pettway, who stands 6-foot-5, weighs 250 pounds and was named the NEC's Rookie of the Year last year. 

CONTINUED TREND: BATTLING IN SOUTH BEND
Bryant continues its trend of taking on a challenging array of non-conference opponents, particularly in the season opener, and 2016-17 is no different. The Bulldogs have taken on the defending national champs in each of the last two seasons (Duke, UConn) and four ranked opponents in as many years to kick off the schedule. This season's opener will be at Notre Dame, the only school in the country to make a run to the Elite Eight in each of the last two years. The Bulldogs have not won a season opener since 2005 and are 33-78 against out-of-conference competition at the Division I level, as the Nov. 12 matchup with the Fighting Irish will mark the third in the series.  

NO TIME TO EXHALE
In addition to the matchup with an Irish team receiving votes, Bryant faces schools across 11 different conferences before diving into Northeast Conference play. The Bulldogs will face four NCAA Tournament qualifiers in 2016-17, including three over the first month of the season. The Black and Gold play Salve Regina at home on Nov. 15 prior to heading to Washington for the start of a 10-day roadtrip which begins at West Coast powerhouse Gonzaga on Nov. 18. The Zags are No. 14 and 13 according the AP Poll and USA Today Coaches Poll, respectively, and the contest kicks off a trip that concludes with Big Ten constituent Northwestern the day after Thanksgiving. Bryant returns home on Nov. 30 to welcome NCAA opening-round winner and defending Ivy League champion Yale. December opens with a journey to Ohio University, with the final non-league road test coming at Navy on Dec. 6.    

SOPH — WE-WANT-SOME — MORE
The Bulldogs will be expecting big things from sophomores Marcel Pettway and Nisre Zouzoua in 2016-17. Pettway became just the second player in program history to garner the NEC Rookie of the Year award, after Alex Francis ('14) did so in 2011. The tandem was the first pair to make the NEC All-Rookie Team since the 2010-11 season and combined to score 14.2 points per game, ranking inside the top-15 at the Division I level among freshman scoring duos. 

Pettway averaged 11.4 points per game last season to rank fourth among NEC rookies. He led all conference freshmen with 7.0 caroms per contest, which was good for ninth overall. The North Providence, R.I., product converted 59.7 percent of his shots from the floor, ranking third in the NEC. He statted eight double-doubles, which were the fifth most in the league and tied him with Francis for the most by a Bryant freshman in the program's Division I tenure. 

Zouzoua exploded over the final month of his rookie season, scoring 20+ points in each of the last three games, which included 29 points on seven threes at LIU Brooklyn on Feb. 27. He averaged 19.3 points per game in February to finish the season with a team-high 12.8 points per effort, also leading all league freshmen. His 60 made threes ranked second among conference rookies. Zouzoua became just the second Bryant freshman to lead the team in scoring, after Francis did so in 2010. Zouzoua will hope to have something else in common with Francis in 2016-17 — leading the team in scoring as a sophomore as well. 

BULLDOGS TO PLAY IN THE 10th ANNUAL LEGENDS CLASSIC
For a second-consecutive season, the Bulldogs will compete in a major tournament to kick off the new campaign, as it participates in the 10th annual Legends Classic. With a combined 83 NCAA Tournament appearances and six Final Fours among the four regional hosts, the eight-team tournament is headlined by Notre Dame, Colorado, Texas and Northwestern. The Bulldogs will take on the Wildcats at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Ill. on Nov. 25 in the second regional matchup. Prior to that collision, Bryant will complete the Subregional Rounds, hosted by Eastern Washington. The Bulldogs will play the host Eagles on Monday, Nov. 21, as the Subregional Consolation Game and Championship Game will be played on Tuesday, Nov. 22. Louisiana Monroe and Seattle will join the Eagles and Bulldogs at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash. for the Subregional Rounds. In the Championship Rounds held at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, Notre Dame will face Colorado in the first semifinal, followed by Texas taking on Northwestern on Nov. 21. The consolation and championship games will take place on Nov. 22.

WHEN THE LIGHTS COME ON
Junior wing Hunter Ware was feeling it when the lights shined at their brightest in 2015-16. Of his four 20-point outings last season, two came in TV games. Ware began the season scoring 24 points against then No. 5/4 Duke on an ESPN3 broadcast, then netted a career-high 26 points at Michigan on Dec. 23 as part of a BIG 10 Network telecast. Ware played at Harvard on ESPN3, at then No. 15/18 Providence on Fox Sports 1, at Wagner on CBS Sports Network, against Robert Morris on ESPN3 and against Fairleigh Dickinson on MSG+, scoring 10, 14, 11, 15 and 14 points, respectively.   

LOOKING TO REBOUND
The Bulldogs were outrebounded in 25 of their 31 games last season, losing the battle on the glass in each of the first 12 games to begin the year. It marked the first time in the program's Division I history the team had opened a campaign on the short side on the glass in 12-straight outings. The last time the Bulldogs were outboarded in more than seven-straight games at any point in a season was back in 2011-12, when the team lost the battle on the boards in nine-consecutive games from Nov. 27-Jan. 5. To find the last time the squad was outrebounded in 12 or more straight contests, you must look all the way back to the 2009-10 season, when the Bulldogs lost the board battle in 20 in a row from Dec. 3-Feb. 13. 

LINEUP DANCING
Head coach Tim O'Shea repeated a starting lineup just twice in 2015-16, mixing and matching with 11 variations of a starting five. The Bulldogs had not seen 10 or more editions of a starting lineup since the 2011-12 season. But the lineups that were duplicated featured four current starters in sophomores Nisre Zouzoua and Marcel Pettway, junior Hunter Ware and senior Dan Garvin.   

TICKET TO RIDE
Single-game and season ticket packages are available for the 2016-17 Bryant University men's and women's basketball seasons. Fans can purchase tickets online at bryantbulldogs.com/tickets or by calling the Bryant Athletics Ticket Office at 401-319-TIXX.

BRYANT HOOPS ON WOON RADIO
For the ninth season, all Bryant University basketball home games and select road contests can be heard LIVE on WOON 1240 AM. Veteran sportscaster Jon Wallach of 98.5 FM The Sports Hub Boston returns to call the action alongside color analyst Tristan Hobbes.

ON TAP
The Bulldogs run into Smithfield for their 2016-17 home opener against Salve Regina Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. The action can be seen live on NECFrontRow.com and heard live on WOON 1240 AM (Jon Wallach and Tristan Hobbes).