BRYANT MEN WRAP UP 2009-10 NON-CONFERENCE SLATE WITH A SATURDAY AFTERNOON ROAD BOUT AGAINST CORNELL (2 P.M.)

December 30, 2009

BRYANT WRAPS UP 2009-10 NON-CONFERENCE SLATE WITH A SATURDAY AFTERNOON ROAD BOUT AGAINST CORNELL (2 P.M.)

Game Notes / Watch / Listen / Live Stats

SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- The Bryant University men's basketball team welcomes in 2010 action this Saturday (Jan. 2) with a 2 p.m. faceoff against the Ivy League's top team in Cornell University. The contest is the fifth and final of the season against an Ivy League opponent, as the Bulldogs wrap up their non-conference schedule against the Big Red, still in search of the season's first win.  

THE PARTICULARS
Bryant welcomes in the new year with a Saturday afternoon (2 p.m.) bout against Cornell on January 2 as the Bulldogs wrap up their 2009-10 non-conference schedule, also finishing up the toughest four-game stretch of the season with its fifth game against an Ivy League opponent this year. The contest ends a 14-day, four-game stretch that included road games against Boston College, St. John's, Indiana and the Big Red. This is the fifth and final time Bryant will square off against an Ancient Eight opponent this season and looks to get its first win of the 2009-10 campaign while avenging last season's loss to the Big Red.  

THE SERIES
This will be the second all-time meeting between Cornell and Bryant, the first coming during the 2008-09 season when the Bulldogs fell to the Big Red at home, 69-46. Now-senior Nick Pontes (New Bedford, Mass.) led the Bulldogs in the January 12 matchup with 13 points, also pulling down a team-best five rebounds (tied with senior Cecil Gresham). The Black and Gold shot 42.9 percent in the second frame, outscoring Cornell, 28-26, but couldn't overcome a 25-point halftime deficit. Now-senior Ryan Wittman paced the Big Red with a game-high 18 points off 7-of-14 shooting.  

SCOUTING THE BIG RED (as of 12/30)
Entering Cornell's December 31, 2009 game against Penn State Erie, the Big Red is led by senior Ryan Wittman, who averages nearly 20 points per outing (19.6 ppg). He is one of three who average double digits, joined by Jeff Foote (13.8 ppg), who has proved to be a deadly shooter from the field (56.4 percent on 62-110), and Chris Wroblewski (10.9 ppg), who leads the team from the line, missing just three in 33 tries on the season. Foote is the side's top shot blocker (21) and top rebounder (107) this season while Louis Dale dished out the most assists with 57 and averaged 9.7 points per game. The Bulldogs and the Big Red have faced off against a pair of common opponents this year, with both teams have taken on Bucknell and St. John's. Cornell earned wins in both those outings, topping the Bison, 104-98 in overtime on the road and beating the Red Storm, 71-66, at Madison Square Garden in the Holiday Festival Tournament.  

BRYANT vs. THE IVY LEAGUE
Saturday's game against Cornell will be the fifth of five matchups against Ivy League opponents for the Bulldogs this season. Bryant has already played Harvard (77-51 L), Brown (70-68 L), Yale (69-54 L) and most recently Columbia (69-57 L) in 2009-10. In its short Division I history, Bryant has faced off against Ivy League members eight times, going just 1-7 against the conference since the beginning of the 2008-09 season. In all-time program history, Bryant basketball is just 1-13 against the league, having taken on Brown most frequently (0-8). Bryant got its only win against an Ivy school with its 69-58 topping of Yale last season. Senior Cecil Gresham (Bloomfield, Conn.) and freshman Raphael Jordan (Bel Air, Md.) have paced the Bulldogs in four games this year, averaging 13.5 and 10.8 points per game, respectively. Gresham has also averaged 7.0 boards per contest.

LAST TIME OUT
Junior Michael Chroney (Nashua, N.H.) scored a team-high 13 points and added a game-best nine rebounds to lead the Bryant University men's basketball team, but the Bulldogs were outmatched by their Big Ten opponent, falling to Indiana, 90-42, in front of 11,138 Monday night at Assembly Hall.  

Chroney's 13 points were a career-best for the junior walk-on, who earned the fourth start of his career against the Hoosiers. He also led the team on the glass with his nine rebounds, just missing his second-career double-double. Freshman Vlad Kondratyev (Nikolayev, Ukraine) also recorded double-digit points with 10 off 4-of-10 shooting from the floor. The Bulldogs were held to a season-low 42 points and shot just 25 percent from the field.  

Bryant worked hard in the offensive end throughout the contest, particularly in the first half, getting some good looks but not much reward for its efforts. The Bulldogs hit just six baskets in the opening frame, shooting 22.2 percent from the floor (6-27), and were sent to the locker room with a 45-17 halftime deficit.  

The Hoosiers opened up a big lead right out of the gates, taking a 12-2 edge before Bryant got its first basket of the game off a 3-pointer from the hands of freshman Erick Smith (Bel Air, Md.) on the wing. But Indiana responded with a trey of its own to regain the double-figure advantage, 15-5.  

Bryant's next score came from an unlikely source in defensive bigman Papa Lo (Thies, Senegal) down low at the 10:53 mark, fed from rookie Raphael Jordan (Bel Air, Md.) on the right side. The layup cut the Hoosiers' lead to 19-7, but not for long.  

The home side's double-digit advantage would hold for the remainder of the frame, highlighted by five 3-point field goals, three of them coming back-to-back-to-back.

The Hoosiers would take a 28-point lead into the break, their final points coming off a Devan Dumes runner as time expired. Smith's five points led the Bulldogs at the half, while Chroney pulled down five boards entering intermission.  

Bryant would come out of the break on a 7-2 run, but after Barry Latham (Taunton, Mass.) capped it off with a four-point play to move the score to 47-24 just 1:28 into the second frame - Christian Watford fouled the junior forward in the right corner as his shot fell in from long range - Bryant went cold, allowing the Hoosiers 14-straight points to put the game out of reach.  

The Bulldogs would record five blocks on the day, including two apiece from Lo and Kondratyev. Sophomore Sam Leclerc (Fayette, Maine) made a game-high three steals.   Watford and Verdell Jones III led the contest with 15 points apiece while Watford also pulled down a game-high nine rebounds, tying Chroney. The Hoosiers shot 55.2 percent from the floor and outrebounded Bryant, 50-32.  

UP NEXT
The Bulldogs restart Northeast Conference action when they travel to New Jersey to take on Fairleigh Dickinson University on Thursday, January 7, 2010 (7:30 p.m.). Bryant will remain in The Garden State for a Saturday matchup against Monmouth (7 p.m.) before returning to the Chace Athletic Center to host its first-ever league home game against Sacred Heart (Jan. 14).

BULLDOGS OUTSHOOT HOOSIERS
Despite falling by the biggest margin of the season Monday at Indiana, the Bulldogs worked hard to get to the hoop, outshooting the Hoosiers, 61-58, in the contest. But Indiana was far more accurate, converting on 32 of its opportunities (55.2 percent) to Bryant's just 15 baskets (24.6 percent). It was just the third time this season Bryant has outshot its opponent (at St. Francis (NY); vs. Brown).  

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
The Empire State is the home to just one Bulldog in senior Adam Parzych. The guard hails from Lindenhurst, N.Y. and Saturday's game will be the fifth of the year in his home state against New York opponents. Bryant will visit New York just once more this season, when it travels to Staten Island for a conference bout against Wagner, for a total of six visits to The Empire State.  

TV STARS
The Bryant men make a trio of television appearances this season, two of them carried regionally. The Bulldogs will appear on Fox College Sports (FCS), Madison Square Garden TV (MSG) and Fox Sports Network-Pittsburgh, also appearing on the BIG TEN Network as well as ESPN Full Court. Bryant first appeared in living rooms when it traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y. on December 5 for a conference game against St. Francis (NY), where Fox College Sports and MSG carried the broadcast live. FSN-Pittsburgh, FCS and ESPN Full Court will be on hand at the Chace Athletic Center when the league opponents Bryant and Saint Francis (PA) meet on February 11, 2009 (7 p.m. start). Both games will be carried locally on Cox Sports-3 in Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. Bryant has also already appeared on the BIG-TEN Network for the second year in a row when the team traveled to Indiana on Dec. 28 to face off against the Hoosiers. Last year, Bryant made its debut on the BIG-10 Network when the Bulldogs took on the University of Iowa.