Mount St. Mary's visits Bryant for Saturday contest

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – The Bryant University men's basketball team plays its penultimate home game of the 2017-18 season Saturday when the Bulldogs host Mount St. Mary's at the Chace Athletic Center.

THE PARTICULARS
Opponent: Mount St. Mary's
Game Time: Saturday, Feb. 10 – 1 p.m.
Tickets: BryantBulldogs.com
Watch Live: NEC Front Row (Jon Wallach, Cam Boon)
Listen Live: WOON 1240 AM (Jon Wallach, Cam Boon)
Live Stats: BryantBulldogs.com
Game Notes: Bryant

SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS
Mount St. Mary's is 15-11 on the year and second in the NEC with a 9-4 record. The Mountaineers have won five straight games entering Saturday and are one of two teams to have clinched an NEC tournament berth through 13 games. 

The Mountaineers feature the NEC's leading scorer in Junior Robinson (22.0 ppg). Robinson ranks second in the NEC at 5.2 assists per game. Mount St. Mary's ranks last in the NEC and 349th out of 351 Division I teams at 28.7 rebounds per game.

THE SERIES
Mount St. Mary's leads the Division I series, 11-6. The home team is 13-4 in the series. 

The Mountaineers took a 96-80 decision in Emmitsburg (1/4) despite 29 points from sophomore Adam Grant (Franklin, Va.). The Bulldogs scored 41 points in the final 11:24 of the contest.

LAST TIME OUT: WAGNER 96, BRYANT 76
Redshirt-freshman Brandon Carroll (Brewster, N.Y.) tallied career-highs with 25 points and 12 rebounds for his first-career double-double, but Wagner hit 16 three-pointers in a 96-76 victory over Bryant Thursday on Staten Island. Sophomore Ikenna Ndugba (Boston, Mass.) added 21 points for the Bulldogs. 

SOME GENERAL STATS ON GRANT
Sophomore Adam Grant has averaged 17.1 points per game on the year with 10 20-point games, including seven of his last 11. The sophomore guard averaged 23.0 points per game in the month of January. 

Grant hit nine three-pointers at Mount St. Mary's (1/4), tying his own Division I program record set last year against Sacred Heart. The 29-point performance came 10 years to the week after the first game of nine three-pointers by a Bulldog, as Peter Lambert drained nine threes against Merrimack Jan. 2, 2008, in Bryant's final Division II season.

SHOOTERS SHOOT
Sophomore Tanner Johnson (Lexington, Ky.) has recorded 105 field-goal attempts this season with 95 of them coming from beyond the arc. Johnson has four games in double figures in scoring this year, including a career-high 19 vs. Fairleigh Dickinson (1/27). 

WE LIKE IKE
Sophomore Ikenna Ndugba has raised his scoring average from 6.0 points per game as a freshman to 13.8 as a sophomore. 

Ndugba has two double-doubles on the year: a 16-point, 10-rebound outing at Hartford (11/24) and a 17-point, 11-assist performance at Memphis (12/9).

Ndugba passed Alex Francis for fourth in Bryant's Division I era in assists in the game at Albany (12/6) and now has 252 in his career.

WARE RISING IN RECORD BOOK
With a steal at Wagner Thursday, senior Hunter Ware (Powder Springs, Ga.) became the third player in Bryant's Division I history to tally 100 career steals. 

SOPHOMORES TAKING THE NEXT STEP
Bryant's sophomore class - Adam Grant, Tanner Johnson, Ikenna Ndugba and Sabastian Townes (Chesapeake, Va.) - has accounted for 58.8 percent of the team's scoring in 2017-18. All four have elevated their points per game averages from a year ago, while Grant (17.1 ppg), Ndugba (13.8) and Townes (12.1) are the Bulldogs' top three scorers. 

MONTY RAISING HIS PLAY AGAINST CONFERENCE SLATE
Freshman Monty Urmilevicius (Kaunas, Lithuania) has given the Bulldogs a lift against NEC competition with three 10-point performances:  Mount St. Mary's (1/4), LIU Brooklyn (1/18) and Central Connecticut (1/25). Urmilevicius recorded his first-career double-double against the Blue Devils with 10 points and a career-best 11 rebounds. 

KOSTUR NAMED TO 3X3U WATCH LIST
Senior Bosko Kostur (Melbourne, Australia) was named to the Early Season Watch List for the inaugural Intersport 3X3U National Championship to be held in San Antonio during Final Four weekend. The tournament will feature a team of graduating seniors from each of the 32 Division I conferences in a three-day event March 30-April 1. 

BULLDOGS LEAD NATION IN LINEUP COMBINATIONS
Bryant has used 17 different starting lineup combinations this season, which is the most nationally entering the weekend. The Bulldogs have started 12 different players this season, with only Ikenna Ndugba (25) and Adam Grant (22) starting in at least two-thirds of Bryant's 26 games. 

NEXT UP: ROBERT MORRIS
Bryant makes the trip to Pennsylvania next weekend for the two-game swing against the NEC's Keystone State members. The weekend opens Thursday with a game against Robert Morris to be played at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The 7 p.m. tip can be seen on NEC Front Row. 

Tickets for Saturday's game and the 2017-18 Bryant University men's basketball season are available by clicking HERE or calling (401) 319-TIXX. 

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