Bryant hosts Sacred Heart Thursday for Senior Night

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – The Bryant University men's basketball team hosts Sacred Heart Thursday night for Senior Night at the Chace Athletic Center.

The Bulldogs will celebrate the careers of seniors Bosko Kostur (Melbourne, Australia), Gus Riley (Nelson, New Zealand) and Hunter Ware (Powder Springs, Ga.) in a pregame ceremony before squaring off with the Pioneers in the final home game of 2017-18.

THE PARTICULARS
Opponent: Sacred Heart
Game Time: Thursday, Feb. 22 – 7 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 PIONEERS
Sacred Heart is 9-20 on the year, 4-12 in the NEC and chasing Central Connecticut for the final spot in the NEC tournament. The Pioneers need two wins this week and two Blue Devil losses to capture the No. 8 seed. 

Sean Hoehn leads the Pioneers in scoring at 12.4 points per game while Joseph Lopez (11.9) and Mario Matasovic (11.8) have also helped lead a balanced offensive attack. Lopez ranks second in the NEC in rebounding (9.1) while Matasovic is ninth (6.2). Sacred Heart's 67.5 points per game are the lowest average in the NEC.

THE SERIES
Sacred Heart holds a 14-6 advantage in the Division I series and is 6-2 against the Bulldogs since the 2014-15 season. Four of the last seven meetings have gone to overtime, including a triple-overtime contest in last year's meeting in Smithfield that Sacred Heart won, 112-110. 

Bryant was victorious in the first meeting of this season with a 79-74 win in Fairfield (1/6). Sophomores Adam Grant (Franklin, Va.) (26), Sabastian Townes (Chesapeake, Va.) (21) and Ikenna Ndugba (Boston, Mass.) (18) combined for 65 of the Bulldogs' 79 points in the victory.

LAST TIME OUT: SAINT FRANCIS U 89, BRYANT 56
Sophomore Adam Grant scored 16 points and redshirt-freshman Brandon Carroll (Brewster, N.Y.) grabbed 10 rebounds, but Saint Francis U captured an 89-56 win on its Senior Day Saturday in Loretto. 

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CARROLL
Redshirt-freshman Brandon Carroll had the best performance of his Bulldog career in a nationally televised game at Wagner (2/8), recording career-highs in points (25) and rebounds (12) for his first-career double-double. Carroll followed that performance with 23 points and eight rebounds in Saturday's win over Mount St. Mary's to earn NEC Rookie of the Week honors. 

Carroll is averaging 14.2 points and 9.2 rebounds per game over his last five contests. 

SHOOTERS SHOOT
Sophomore Tanner Johnson (Lexington, Ky.) has recorded 130 field-goal attempts this season with 118 of them coming from beyond the arc. Johnson has five games in double figures in scoring this year, including a career-high 19 vs. Fairleigh Dickinson (1/27). 

Johnson has scored 13 points or more in four of his seven starts and is averaging 10.1 points per game while in the starting five.

SOME GENERAL STATS ON GRANT
Sophomore Adam Grant has averaged 16.3 points per game on the year with 10 20-point games. 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.

WE LIKE IKE
Sophomore Ikenna Ndugba has raised his scoring average from 6.0 points per game as a freshman to 13.6 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 265 in his career.

WARE RISING IN RECORD BOOK
With a steal at Wagner (2/8), senior Hunter Ware 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 - has accounted for 58.6 percent of the team's scoring in 2017-18. All four have elevated their points per game averages from a year ago, while Grant (16.3 ppg), Ndugba (13.6) and Townes (11.8) are the Bulldogs' top three scorers. 

KOSTUR NAMED TO 3X3U WATCH LIST
Senior Bosko Kostur 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 tied with Siena and UT Martin for the most nationally entering the week. The Bulldogs have started 12 different players this season, with only Ikenna Ndugba (28) and Adam Grant (25) starting in at least two-thirds of Bryant's 29 games. 

NEXT UP: FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON
Bryant closes out the 2017-18 season with a game Saturday at Fairleigh Dickinson. The 4:30 p.m. tip in Hackensack, New Jersey, can be seen on NEC Front Row.

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