BULLDOGS LOOK FOR BACK-TO-BACK WINS; TAKE ON QUINNIPIAC THURSDAY (7 P.M.)

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SMITHFIELD, R.I. – The Bryant University men's basketball team makes the first of back-to-back trips to The Constitution State when it travels to Hamden, Conn. Thursday for a 7:00 p.m. matchup against Northeast Conference rival Quinnipiac University at the TD Bank Sports Center.

THE SERIES
Bryant has faced off against the Bobcats of Quinnipiac more than any other team in the Northeast Conference. Both programs have histories in the Division II ranks and have faced off frequently at both levels of NCAA competition. The Bulldogs have matched up against Quinnipiac 55 times in the history of the two programs, as Bryant and Quinnipiac shared a league for 10 years as members of the Division II Northeast-10 Conference. The Bobcats, who joined the NE-10 (of which Bryant was a founding member) for the 1987-88 season and stayed in the league until the school's move up to Division I after the 1996-97 campaign, own a 39-16 advantage in the all-time series, all but four of those meetings coming at the DII level. The teams push at 2-2 in the Division I era, with Bryant sweeping a two-game season series in 2008-09 and Quinnipiac returning the favor last season. Still, much history has been made between these two programs, highlighted by the Bulldogs' first-ever Division I win, a 59-50 victory over the Bobcats on Nov. 22, 2008. Quinnipiac took a pair of back-to-back contests in 2009-10, topping the Bulldogs at home, 80-66, on Jan. 16 and beating the Black and Gold again just five days later, 84-59, in Hamden, Conn.

SCOUTING THE BOBCATS
Quinnipiac is paced by preseason all-conference selection Justin Rutty, who averages a near double-double with 16.6 points per game and 9.9 rebounds per contest, and the senior leads three double-digit point scorers for the Bobcats. James Johnson is close behind, with 16.2 points per outing, and leads the team in multiple categories, including assists (57), steals (29), 3-pointers (38), 3-point percentage (.400) and free throw percentage (.881), while Deontay Twyman's 12.3 points per game, 48 assists and 20 trifectas also help carry the scoring load. The Bobcats rely on just four shooters from the perimeter and have gotten treys from only Johnson, Twyman, Dominique Langston (14) and Dave Johnson (6) and the team shoots 42.9 percent from the floor. Jamee Jackson boasts a team-leading 17 blocks and the Bobcats are outrebounding opponents 43.8-34.4 on the year. Quinnipiac is looking for its third-straight win and 12th victory of the season against the Black and Gold after dropping their first NEC contest of the year January 3 at home against Wagner.

BRYANT vs. THE NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
So far in 2010-11, the Bulldogs are 1-3 against their home conference, having won their first NEC contest of the year the last time out, a 67-64 nail biter win over St. Francis (NY) at home. Bryant has gone 8-28 against current Northeast Conference 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 36-82, having most frequently faced off against former Northeast-10 Conference (DII) member Quinnipiac (16-39).

COMMON DENOMINATOR
Outside Northeast Conference foes, Bryant and Quinnipiac will face off against three common opponents in total this season. Both squads have already taken on Yale and Lehigh in 2010-11, and the Bobcats have won both meetings with the Bulldogs suffering opposite results. Quinnipiac opened its season against Yale, topping the Bulldogs, 84-75, at the Connecticut 6 Classic and beat a tough Lehigh side at home, 84-78, on Dec. 7. Bryant fell to the Mountain Hawks, 88-68, on Nov. 28 and suffered a 75-53 setback to Yale at home on Dec. 8. Quinnipiac has one non-conference contest remaining this season and will play Brown, another Bulldog opponent, on Jan. 17. Bryant fell to its intrastate rival, 84-71, on New Year's Eve in the team's final non-conference matchup of the year.

CONNECTICUT CONNECTIONS
Fifth-year senior Cecil Gresham returns to his home state for the next two games and is the only Bulldog on the roster from Connecticut. Gresham hails from Bloomfield while fellow senior Barry Latham attended high school at Marianapolis Prep in Thompson, Conn.

LAST TIME OUT
With five seconds remaining in a tie game, freshman Corey Maynard drilled a game-winning 3-pointer from deep in the right corner to lift the Bryant University men's basketball team to the program's first-official Northeast Conference home win, a 67-64 victory over St. Francis (NY)  Saturday afternoon at the Chace Athletic Center.

Down by two, 64-62, Frankie Dobbs missed the front end of a one-and-one, but senior Cecil Gresham was there to grab the offensive board near the baseline, allowing him the easy layup to tie the game at 64-64 with 46 seconds left to play in the contest.

St. Francis came down the floor on the next possession, but senior sharpshooter Ricky Cadell's shot (18 points) was off target and senior Barry Latham pulled in the rebound, passing the ball off to Dobbs, the floor general for the Bulldogs. And it was Dobbs who would set up Maynard's game-winning heroics, dishing the ball off to the rookie set up in the corner with under five seconds to play.

The trey, which Maynard dropped in with 4.3 showing on the clock to vault Bryant to a 67-64 lead, was the freshman's only basket of the game and one of just two shots for the guard on the day.

While Maynard played hero, it was Gresham's game-high 24 points that were most instrumental in the victory, as the senior shot 76.9 percent for the floor, hitting a season-high 10 field goals in 13 tries, including four 3-pointers. Sophomore Vlad Kondratyev chipped in with 12 points while Latham added a season-high 10 on the affair. As a team, the Bulldogs shot at a season-best 52.3 percent clip from the field (23-of-44) and outrebounded the Terriers, 39-24, the largest rebounding margin of the season.

But the Terriers wasted no time in establishing a lead at the outset of the game, as Akeem Bennett (15 points) and Akeem Johnson (13 points) combined for the first five points of the contest until Bulldog freshman Alex Francis put the Bulldogs on the board with a driving layup at the 18:20 mark. From there, Stefan Perunicic hit a pair of 3-pointers to give the Terriers a nine-point advantage – their largest lead of the game – but the Bulldogs answered with a Gresham 3-pointer to cut the lead to 15-9 with 13:26 to play in the opening stanza.

St. Francis recouped a nine-point edge with a 6-2 run, but Bryant would trim that lead to four points, 24-20, with 4:00 to play, a pair of Latham freebies. Two Francis free throws cut the score to 28-26, a score that would stick through the halftime break. Gresham led all scorers with nine points on 4-of-6 shooting at the intermission while Perunicic paced the Terriers with eight points, including a pair of 3-pointers. But the Bulldogs gave the ball away 12 times in the opening 20 minutes and St. Francis took advantage of the miscues, scoring 16 points off turnovers.

Out of the break, Kondratyev tied the score at 28-28 just over a minute in, crashing the boards on a missed shot by Raphael Jordan for a quick one-handed putback. The teams then took turns trading slim leads, highlighted by a series of seven 3-pointers between both squads over a 3:22 span, with St. Francis coming out of the stretch on top, 52-48, despite three treys from Gresham. While both lineups continued to score, St. Francis maintained its four-point lead until a trey by Perunicic pushed the Terriers up, 61-54, with 6:25 left in the contest.

Bryant answered with an 8-3 run, capped off by a Latham 3-pointer to bring the Bulldogs within one point, 63-62, at the 3:22 mark. The Terriers would score just a single point more, a free throw by Cadell at the 3:13 mark, allowing the home side to overtake the lead on Maynard's game winner. A 3-pointer at the buzzer from Cadell hit the rim but was just off target, sealing the victory for the home side as the Bulldogs claimed their first official home NEC win, 67-64.

BULLDOGS WIN FIRST NEC HOME GAME
Bryant's 67-64 win over St. Francis (NY) Saturday marked the first official Northeast Conference home win in program history. The Bulldogs have beat an NEC team at the Chace Athletic Center before, but that victory — a 57-55 topping of LIU on Jan. 24, 2009 — came in the program's inaugural Division I season, before the Bulldogs were given a full conference schedule and before they were included in the NEC standings. Saturday's win was the first of the year Bryant, who is 1-3 in conference action entering Thursday's game.

THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER
Rookie guard Corey Maynard made the biggest shot of his collegiate career and one of the most clutch shots of the season in the final seconds of Saturday's 67-64 win over St. Francis (NY), setting up in the right corner for a cross-court pass from Frankie Dobbs and drilling a 3-pointer with 4.3 seconds left on the clock to put the Bulldogs ahead for good, 67-64. Maynard played 26 minutes in the game but was just 0-for-1 from the floor having missed his first two free throws of the season before the shot. The frosh dished out a career-high six assists to compliment his last-second heroics and has 29 helpers on the year. The basket was also the first of 2011.

UP NEXT
The Black and Gold stay in Connecticut to take on NEC opponent Sacred Heart Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m.) in Fairfield.