BRYANT MEN LOOK TO OPEN 2011 WITH FIRST NEC WIN OF SEASON MONDAY AT MONMOUTH (7 P.M.)

GAME NOTES HOME

SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- The Bryant University men's basketball team looks to open 2011 with its first Northeast Conference win of the 2010-11 campaign Monday, January 3 against Monmouth University. Tipoff from the MAC is slated for 7:00 p.m.

THE SERIES
This is the fourth meeting all-time between the Bulldogs and the Hawks, and Bryant looks to even the series at 2-2 with a win Monday night. Bryant started out the series on a high note during the 2008-09 season — the Bulldogs' inaugural Division I campaign — taking the series opener at Monmouth's old home, Boylan Gym, 83-71, on Feb. 5, 2009. It is still the most points the Bulldog program has scored since joining the Division I ranks, but the Black and Gold haven't topped the Hawks since, dropping a pair of contests last season, 67-62, and 50-46. Senior Cecil Gresham scored 27 points and went 10-for-18 from the floor in Bryant's only win over the Hawks, the only game against Monmouth in which he has appeared after missing last season due to injury. Sophomore Vlad Kondratyev averaged 14.0 points per game and shot 62.5 percent from the field (10-of-16) in a pair of outings last season to lead the Bryant ranks.

SCOUTING THE HAWKS
Monmouth enters Monday's contest with a 4-9 overall record but have lost four straight, having last won Dec. 11 in a double-overtime victory over Hartford, 78-74. The low-scoring Hawks are led by 9.2 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per outing from Ed Waite. James Hett, the only other 13-game starter besides Waite, dishes out a team-leading 53 assists and 19 steals. Will Campbell contributes 8.8 points per game, while Phil Wait's 50 percent clip from the floor (28-of-56) paces the home side. The Hawks average just 58.6 points per game, but let up just 66.7 to their opponents.

BRYANT vs. THE NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
Monday's game is the second for the Bulldogs against their home conference and marks the restart of Northeast Conference action in 2010-11. Bryant has gone 7-26 against current NEC members since joining the Division I ranks, with six of those wins coming in the program's inaugural DI season in 2008-09. All-time against current Northeast Conference members, the Bulldog basketball program is 35-78, having most frequently faced off against former Northeast-10 Conference (DII) member Quinnipiac (16-37).

COMMON DENOMINATOR
Outside Northeast Conference opponents, Bryant and Monmouth have faced off against just two common opponent this season. Both squads have taken on Lehigh University (Patriot League) and Harvard (Ivy League) in 2010-11, with both sides falling to the Crimson. But the results against the Mountain Hawks were different, as Monmouth topped Lehigh, 69-68, at home on Nov. 19, just days before the Bulldogs fell at Stabler Arena, 88-68.

LAST TIME OUT
Forward Alex Francis scored a team-high 21 points and grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds, but it was not enough to overcome a strong shooting performance by intrastate rival Brown University, as the Bears pulled away for a 84-71 non-conference victory Friday afternoon at the Pizzitola Center.

For Francis, it was his third double-double of the season as the freshman finished 6-for-13 from the floor and sank nine free throws. Teammate Frankie Dobbs added 16 points and six assists in 38 minutes of action.

But the story of the game was the red-hot shooting by Brown, as the Bears made 14-of-35 from 3-point range, including five treys from sophomore Tucker Halpern. Halpern, a 6-foot-8 forward, scored 10 of the Bears' first 12 points as the home side went ahead right out of the gate, 12-3. Halpern would finish with a game-high 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting and a blistering 5-for-9 clip from beyond the arc.

Bryant struggled on the offensive end in the early goings, as the Bulldogs missed 10 of their first 11 shots from the floor, but after a timeout, the visitors settled down and started to chip away at Brown's lead.

A runner in the paint by Daniel Calandrillo helped kick start an 8-0 spurt by the Bulldogs to pull to within one, 12-11, with 12:15 left in the half. A long jumper at the top of the key by Francis and a fast-break basket by Lee helped key the run by the Bulldogs.

But Bears quickly answered the Bryant run with some long-range accuracy, as Halpern and Adrian Williams canned back-to-back 3-pointers and Brown pushed the lead to 20-11.

Bryant's Matthew Lee (11 points) would drain a 3-pointer of his own to help stem the Brown run, but the pause was only brief, as Peter Sullivan and Williams drained two more treys from the baseline and quickly put the Bears back in front, 31-17. It would be more of the same as another baseline three from Williams helped give Brown its largest lead of the half, 45-24, with just over three minutes to play.

Looking for a little momentum before the break, Dobbs went to work, scoring two inside baskets in the paint and knocking down a couple of free throws as the Bulldogs scored the final eight points of the half to head into the locker room down, 47-34.

But in the second, Brown continued to fire away from deep as another three from Halpern helped push the lead back to 66-45, and the Bears would cruise from there to the 84-71 final.

ALEX THE GREAT
Top rookie Alex Francis has been impressive for the Bulldogs all year long, but has been particularly remarkable over the last three contests, posting game highs on the glass and double-digit points in all three outings. Against Brown on Friday afternoon, Francis pulled down a career-high 13 rebounds to tie the game best, a mark that complimented a team-leading 21 points for the rookie bigman's third double-double of the season. The performance came fresh off a career-best 23-point outing in 25 minutes in a 71-42 win over Oberlin College at home Dec. 29 for back-to-back 20+-point outings. The frosh's 23 points came off 8-of-11 shooting and were the second-most of any Bulldog this season, while the 13 rebounds Francis put up against the Bears marked the most single-game boards of any Bryant player on the year. The forward has emerged as one of the Northeast Conference's top freshmen throughout the first half of the 2010-11 campaign and now leads the team in scoring with 14.5 points per game, good for ninth in the Northeast Conference, as well as on the glass. He now has the Bulldogs' seven highest single-game rebounding marks on the 2010-11 season and is second in the league on the boards, where he paces the NEC's entire freshman class with 8.1 rebounds per contest. Francis is also shooting a team-leading 48 percent from the floor.

MONDAY, MONDAY
Bryant's January 3rd game against the Hawks is the first and only Monday contest of the 2010-11 season. The Bulldogs play the most games on Sundays (11), with nine Thursday games, five Wednesday games, three Sunday games, two Friday games and just this single Monday contest. Bryant does not play at all on a Tuesday all season long.