BULLDOGS HOST SACRED HEART ON SENIOR DAY SATURDAY (2 P.M.); FOLLOW INSIDE WITH COVER IT LIVE BLOG

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SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- The Bryant University men's basketbll team welcomes Northeast Conference rival Sacred Heart to the Chace Athletic Center Saturday afternoon (2 p.m.) looking to wrap up its 2010-11 home schedule with a victory and finish the season with a winning league record at home. Saturday's game will be broadcast live on MSG and tape delayed on Cox Sports Sunday at 2 p.m. The contest can also be seen and heard live at www.bryantbulldogs.com.

THE PARTICULARS
The Bulldogs host the Pioneers in the teams' second meeting of the 2010-11 campaign and will try to stay perfect against Sacred Heart this year. Saturday's matchup will be aired on Cox Sports and MSG with Matt Harmon calling the play-by-play and Joe DeSantis providing in-game analysis, with John Schmeelk reporting from the sidelines. Saturday also marks 2010-11 Senior Day, and Bryant will honor seniors Cecil Gresham, Michael Chroney, Papa Lo and Barry Latham in a pregame ceremony.

THE SERIES
Bryant has faced off against the Pioneers more than any other team in the Northeast Conference other than Quinnipiac, as the two programs share their roots at the Division II level. A DII power until making the transition to Division I in 1999-00, Sacred Heart owns a 12-9 edge in the all-time series, with just five of those bouts coming at the DI level. The Pioneers have won all but one of those Division I matchups, as the Bulldogs took the most recent head-to-head, 72-59, on Jan. 15 in Fairfield, Conn. The 13-point win was amidst Bryant's longest winning streak this season (four games) and marked the most lopsided victory for the Bulldogs this season against DI competition.

LAST TIME AGAINST SACRED HEART
Sophomore guard Raphael Jordan had one of the best games of his career and his best performance of the season in the Bulldogs' 72-59 win Jan. 15 in Fairfield, Conn., going 7-for-9 from the floor in 35 minutes of action for a season-high 15 points. Sophomore Frankie Dobbs chipped in a then-career-best and game-high 22 points and rookie forward Alex Francis recorded his fifth double-double of the season to lead the Bryant University men's basketball team to the program's first Division I victory over Sacred Heart. The win came courtesy of 55.6 percent shooting (25-of-45) from the Bulldogs, the team's best shooting percentage of the season, as the Bryant defense held the Pioneers to just 27.4 percent accuracy, the lowest mark of any Bulldog opponent in 2010-11. The Bulldogs led by as many as 16 in the contest and would go 7-of-8 from the charity stripe down the stretch, including a perfect 6-for-6 mark from Dobbs, to secure the 13-point victory.

SCOUTING THE PIONEERS
Sacred Heart enters Saturday's contest on a five-game losing streak, having dropped four games to the NEC's top-three teams since the start of February. The Pioneers currently sit in 11th place in the NEC with a 9-17 overall mark and a 4-11 league record. Redshirt sophomore Shane Gibson paces the Pioneers with 16.5 points and 2.5 treys per outing in addition to his 3.9 boards per night. The Connecticut native is also tied for a team high with 15 blocks and is averaging a team-best 17.5 points per game in league contests. Senior guard Jerrell Thompson is leading the Pioneers with 97 assists on the year while shooting a team-high 86 percent from the free throw line. Stan Dulaire paces the side on the glass, pulling down 5.1 boards per outing. Picked to finish ninth in the Northeast Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll, the Pioneers are currently ranked first in the NEC with 7.96 steals per outing -- led by 45 from Thompson, fourth in the league in free throw percentage (69.4), second in rebounding defense (34.1 rpg) and sixth in field goal percentage (42.1).

BRYANT VS. NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
The Bulldogs enter Saturday's matchup with a 3-3 mark in last six games, trading wins and losses since Jan. 29. A win on Senior Day would move Bryant back to .500 in league play and to 4-2 on the season against NEC members from Connecticut. Since joining the Division I ranks, Bryant has gone 14-33 against current Northeast Conference members, with six of those wins coming in the program's inaugural DI season (2008-09) and seven more coming to date in 2010-11. All-time against current NEC members, the Bulldog basketball program is 42-87, having most frequently faced off against former Northeast-10 Conference (DII) member Quinnipiac (18-40).

COMMON DENOMINATOR
Outside Northeast Conference foes, Bryant and Sacred Heart have faced off against a pair of common opponents in Ivy Leaguers Brown and Yale this season. Both squads fell to the Bears — the Pioneers taking an 81-67 loss in December and the Bulldogs suffering an 84-71 setback on New Year's Eve — while Sacred Heart earned a 71-62 victory over Yale on Dec. 19. Bryant dropped a 75-53 decision to the Elis at home on Dec. 8.

LAST TIME OUT
The Bryant University men's basketball team pulled within six early in the second half but could not fend off the long range shooting of Quinnipiac, as the Bulldogs fell, 80-60, in Northeast Conference action Thursday night at the Chace Athletic Center. Following a Barry Latham layup to trim the lead down to 44-38 at the 17:40 mark of the second stanza, Quinnipiac answered with a 14-2 run, led by a trio of 3-pointers from James Johnson, as the visitors went on to salvage a split in the season series.

Johnson led the Bobcat attack with 24 points, including seven makes from beyond the arc, while Justin Rutty added 16 points and 10 rebounds for the only double-double of the contest. As a team, Quinnipiac shot 52.5 percent from the floor and went 10-for-21 from 3-point range. Bryant was led offensively by freshman Alex Francis, who registered 17 points and nine boards, while Cecil Gresham added 11 points and Frankie Dobbs and Vlad Kondratyev chipped in with 10 apiece.

Quinnipiac opened the game with a strong 12-0 run just three minutes into the contest, until Kondratyev put the home squad on the board with a layup at the 17:04 mark. From there, the Bulldogs chipped away at the early deficit by way of the long range shot, as Gresham and Matt Lee combined for a trio of 3-pointers over the next four minutes to cut the Bobcat lead to 16-13 with 13:13 remaining before the break.

Following a 3-pointer from Kondratyev, Dobbs sunk a free throw to tie up the score, 23-23, at the 7:05 mark, but Quinnipiac answered with a 15-0 run as back-to-back lay-ins by Rutty put the visitors back on top, 38-23, with 4:14 to play in the half. Gresham ended the scoring drought with a jumper from the corner, followed by a Corey Maynard trey, but the Bobcats went into the locker room with a 42-34 advantage.

The teams swapped baskets in the early going of the second stanza until four-consecutive Quinnipiac treys, including three from James Johnson, gave the Bobcats the 58-40 advantage with 13:26 remaining. Bryant showed signs of a comeback with consecutive 3-pointers by Kondratyev and Gresham, but the Bobcats responded with a trifecta from Dominique Langston as the visitors ended the half in strong and cruised to the 80-60 victory.

REACHING MILESTONES
Fifth-year senior Cecil Gresham is moving up the Bryant men's basketball all-time scoring list at a rapid pace in his final season of collegiate action. Gresham became the 31st 1,000-point scorer in program history last December, and after starting the season at the bottom of that list, Gresham has since added 337 points to jump to No. 16 all-time. And with 1,337 career points, the forward keeps getting closer and closer to the next spot up the all-time ranks, now needing just six points to match the 1,343 scored by his former teammate Jon Ezeokoli from 2004-08 and move into the top-15 all-time. Gresham is just one board short of reaching the 500-career rebound threshold with three games remaining. The Connecticut native is averging 4.5 boards per contest this season and has recorded at least three rebounds in 19 of his 24 games this year. Earlier this season, Gresham appeared in his 100th-career contest (Nov. 13 against Kent State) and has appeared in 122 games over his stellar career.

BRYANT RANKED 25TH IN NATION IN THREES PER GAME; TWO BULLDOGS RANKED IN TOP-40
The Bulldogs have been strong from 3-point range all season and lead the conference with 8.26 triples per game, a number that also ranks them No. 25 in the nation. Bryant ranks atop the NEC standings in the category, averaging nearly two extra treys per game than its closest NEC competitor, and ranks second in the NEC in 3-point field goal percentage, converting from beyond the arc at a 36.4 percent clip. Bryant gets nearly 38 percent of its total team scoring from beyond the arc, and Frankie Dobbs (56), Cecil Gresham (61) and rookie Matt Lee (39) lead the team in trifectas on the year.

The Bulldogs also have two players in the conference's top-10 as individuals, with Gresham's 2.54 made 3-pointers per game good for third and Dobbs' 2.07 good for eighth. The same two are also in the top-10 for 3-point field goal percentage, where Gresham's 41.5 percent shooting from long range ranks not just fourth in the conference, but also 31st in the nation (Dobbs ranks 8th in the NEC at 39.2 percent). Dobbs holds an individual national ranking of his own, sitting at No. 37 in assists per game with 5.19 each time out.

STAGE FRIGHT
With Thursday night's 80-60 loss to Quinnipiac, the Bulldogs moved to 0-3 on the season in televised games. Bryant dropped a 93-77 decision to Michigan back on Dec. 23 in Ann Arbor, Mich., in a game aired on the Big Ten Network and also fell to Central Connecticut, 71-55, on Feb. 9, in a contest broadcasted on MSG and Cox Sports. The Bulldogs will look to reverse their fortune Saturday and move to 1-3 in televised matchups this season.

TV STARS
The NEC will televise 22 men's basketball conference matchups in 2010-11, including a pair of Bryant contests. The Bulldogs will appear on local and national television a total of four times this season and will play the second of back-to-back televised games Saturday live on MSG after hosting Quinnipiac Thursday for a Cox Sports audience. Thursday's and Saturday's games will air on tape delay in a Sunday afternoon (2/20) doubleheader on Cox Sports starting at 12 p.m. Bryant's first TV appearance of the season came back on Dec. 23, when the Bulldogs were featured on the Big Ten Network for the third-straight season in a game against the University of Michigan. Bryant also appeared on MSG+ and Cox Sports Feb 9 for the team's first Rivalry Week matchup against Central Connecticut.

UP NEXT
Bryant will square off with top-seeded Long Island University Thursday, Feb. 24 at 7:00 p.m., as the Bulldogs will look to avenge a 75-55 loss to the Blackbirds on Jan. 6 at the Chace Athletic Center. The Black and Gold will then wrap up the 2010-11 campaign in New York City against St. Francis (NY) in a 4:30 p.m. season finale.