BULLDOGS RETURN HOME TO HOST YALE WEDNESDAY NIGHT IN SEARCH OF FIRST HOME WIN OF THE SEASON

Game Notes

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – The Bryant University men's basketball team breaks up a five-game road stretch with a lone home contest Wednesday, December 8 against Yale, marking the first of just two home games this month. Bryant will welcome its Bulldog counterparts into the Chace Athletic Center for a 7 p.m. matchup and look for the season's first win in front of the home crowd.

BATTLE OF THE BULLDOGS: A SERIES HISTORY
Wednesday's contest will be just the third time in program history that Bryant and Yale have met on the hardwood. The Bulldogs of Rhode Island got the series off to a good start on January 2, 2009, taking a 69-58 victory over their Connecticut counterparts at the Chace Athletic Center in Bryant's inaugural Division I season. But last year, Yale evened the score on its own home court, dropping the Black and Gold, 69-54, on December 9, 2010 despite a double-double from Michael Chroney and despite being outshot by Bryant on the night. Senior Barry Latham averages 8.0 points per game with eight assists against the Elis and is the only current Bulldog to have played Yale twice in his career. The winner of Wednesday's game will take command of the series edge.

SCOUTING THE YALE BULLDOGS
Yale enters Smithfield fresh off a 74-53 win over Albany Monday night at home and is an even 4-4 on the year. Austin Morgan and Greg Mangano — who scored 21 against the Great Danes and averages a near double-double with 9.4 rebounds per game — pace the Bulldogs with 16.1 points per contest, while Porter Braswell and Reggie Whillhite join them in double figures with 11.5 and 10.4 points per outing, respectively.  Willhite helps Mangano bear the load on the glass, pulling down 5.0 boards per game, and he and Braswell lead the team in assists with 23 apiece. Mangano has 16 blocks so far this season.

BRYANT vs. THE IVY LEAGUE
Bryant is 1-9 against the Ancient Eight in its short Division I history, having matched up against Columbia (0-2), Brown (0-2), Cornell (0-2) and Yale (1-1) each of the last two seasons. In the history of the program, the Bulldogs are just 1-15 against Ivy League opponents, most frequently matching up with intrastate rival Brown (0-8). Bryant earned its lone win over the conference on January 2, 2009 with a 69-58 topping of Yale at the Chace Athletic Center. Just two current Bulldogs played in the victory, with now-senior Barry Latham chipping in 14 points and five assists off the bench while Cecil Gresham got the start but posted just two points, two rebounds and a pair of assists. For his career, Gresham leads the Bulldog ranks against Ivy League foes, averaging 12.4 points per game in seven contests. The Bulldogs have already faced off against Ivy League member Harvard (69-66 loss) and will take on the conference twice more in December (at Columbia, 12/11; at Brown, 12/31).

LAST TIME OUT
Fifth-year senior Cecil Gresham (Bloomfield, Conn.) poured in a game-high and season-best 28 points off 9-for-17 shooting Thursday night, but Fairleigh Dickinson shot an impressive 54 percent from the floor and got 22 points from the stripe to hand the Bryant University men's basketball team its first Northeast Conference loss of the year, 78-68, at Stratis Arena.

Gresham drained six trifectas (6-of-14) and went 4-for-5 from the line in the outing and pulled down a team-best six rebounds as one of two Bulldogs to reach double figures. A trio of Knights – led by 24 points from a near-unstoppable Kamil Svrdlik – put up double digits points in the winning effort.

After taking an 11-point deficit into the halftime break, Frankie Dobbs (Berea, Ohio) dropped in his second of three second-half treys to cap off a 15-6 run that brought the Bulldogs to within just a single basket, 47-45, with 13:17 left to play in the contest. Bryant would continue to make up ground over the next two-and-a-half minutes, getting as close as a single point, 49-48, after Gresham's fifth 3-pointer of the game at the 10:47 mark.

The Bulldogs still trailed by just three, 54-51, with just under 7:30 on the clock, but a decisive offensive rebound by FDU's Terence Grier (18 points) on the very next play after a missed free throw from Svrdlik would cut the Bulldogs' momentum down, setting off an uninterrupted eight-point run for the Knights that all but sealed the game in the home team's favor. FDU would turn the run into a 24-17 scoring margin that carried through the final whistle, vaulting the Knights to a 78-68 final victory in the 2010-11 conference opener.

Rebounds were an issue all night for the Bulldogs, who were beaten on the glass, 38-27 after a 20-9 halftime mark. But the whistle was an even bigger hindrance for the Black and Gold, who sent their hosts to the line 31 times in the game. FDU would convert on 22 of those opportunities, while the Bulldogs went just 8-of-12 from the charity stripe.

The Bulldogs kept the score close to open Thursday night's contest, but after the first seven minutes, Svrdlik and Grier would take over the FDU scoring, combining for a 14-point stretch over the next 10 minutes that gave the home side a 31-22 advantage with 5:30 to play before the intermission. Gresham did all he could to keep the Knights from running away with the game, drilling four 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes for 14 points at the break, but the fifth-year senior didn't get much help from his supporting cast, who went a combined 6-for-18 from the floor in the frame. Svrdlik went 6-for-8 in the first session to enter the halftime break with 12 points to lead the Knights.

Bryant succeeded in limiting the baskets of leading scorer Mike Scott – the preseason all-conference selection went just 2-for-10 from the field on the day – but Bryant fouls sent him to the line 12 times for 11 points (17 on the night). Senior Barry Latham (Taunton, Mass.) scored a season-high nine points and posted a contest-leading three blocks on the evening, while Dobbs joined Gresham in double figures with 14 points off 50 percent shooting and a 4-of-7 mark from beyond the arc (7 assists).

Gresham's 28 points are a single-game high for the Bulldogs so far this season, as are the 12 buckets the Bulldogs dropped in from long range.

UP NEXT
The Black and Gold take to the highways and skyways once more for a three-game road trip that will send them to three different states. The Bulldogs will first travel to New York City, where they will take on their second-straight Ivy League opponent in Columbia on Saturday, December 11 (4:00 p.m.). From there, Bryant has a date with the nearby Eagles of Boston College — the team's only ACC matchup of the year — on Sunday, December 19 (3:00 p.m.). The team ends its pre-Christmas schedule on December 23, when the Bulldogs face off against arguably its toughest opponent of the season in the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (7:00 p.m.).