Bulldogs close out 2017-18 season Saturday at FDU
HACKENSACK, N.J. – The Bryant University men's basketball team closes out the 2017-18 season with a Saturday afternoon contest in New Jersey against Fairleigh Dickinson.
Saturday's game will be the final game in the coaching career of Bryant head coach Tim O'Shea, who will retire following Saturday's game. O'Shea led the Bulldogs for 10 seasons and worked as a Division I coach for 34 years before announcing his retirement earlier this month.
THE PARTICULARS
Opponent: Fairleigh Dickinson
Game Time: Saturday, Feb. 24 – 4:30 p.m.
Watch Live: NEC Front Row
Live Stats: FDUKnights.com
Game Notes: Bryant
SCOUTING THE KNIGHTS
Fairleigh Dickinson is 11-17 and 8-9 in the NEC entering the final day of the regular season. The Knights can finish either sixth or seventh based on Saturday's results.
Darnell Edge leads FDU with 14.0 points per game while Mike Holloway Jr. has added 13.4. Darian Anderson scored 13.1 points per game in 15 contests before suffering a season-ending injury. Holloway has grabbed 7.0 rebounds per game, which ranks fifth in the NEC.
THE SERIES
The all-time series is even at 8-8 with five of the 16 previous meetings decided by three points or less. The Bulldogs are 4-3 all-time in Hackensack.
The Knights recorded an 89-78 victory in Smithfield in the first meeting of the year (1/27). Sophomore Adam Grant (Franklin, Va.) scored 25 points in the contest while sophomore Tanner Johnson (Lexington, Ky.) added a career-high 19 points on six made three-pointers.
LAST TIME OUT: SACRED HEART 94, BRYANT 84
Sophomore Ikenna Ndugba (Boston, Mass.) scored 20 points and matches his career-high with five steals, but Sacred Heart won a high-scoring affair in Smithfield Thursday. Seniors Bosko Kostur (Melbourne, Australia) and Hunter Ware (Powder Springs, Ga.) scored 15 points each on Senior Night.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, CARROLL
Redshirt-freshman Brandon Carroll (Brewster, N.Y.) 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 13.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game over his last six contests.
SHOOTERS SHOOT
Sophomore Tanner Johnson has recorded 139 field-goal attempts this season with 127 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 13.8 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 has played 1,067 total minutes this season - the 11th-highest total in the nation.
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 (Chesapeake, Va.) - has accounted for 58.5 percent of the team's scoring in 2017-18. All four have elevated their points per game averages from a year ago, while Grant (16.1 ppg), Ndugba (13.8) and Townes (11.4) 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 (29) and Adam Grant (26) starting in at least two-thirds of Bryant's 30 games.
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