Molloy University Athletics

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. (Dec. 29, 2015) – After a much-needed respite for the holiday season, the Molloy College men's basketball team will return to the hardwood looking to close out 2015 on the right note. The maroon and white conclude the calendar year as well as the non-conference portion of the campaign with a late afternoon tussle in Waltham, Mass. on Wednesday (Dec. 30) with the Bentley University Falcons.

The Lowdown on the Lions
It will have been a full ten days since Molloy last played a game when the Lions step on the court in Waltham. The team's last game was a complete performance, a 74-63 victory over Pace University on Dec. 20 in Pleasantville. With the exception of a 22-all tie midway through the first half, the Lions never let the Setters sniff the lead thanks to a dominant first-half shooting effort to the tune of a 58% clip (18-31). It was an outing that saw a lower total of rebounds for the Lions (38 boards on the night), but a plus-four effort limited Pace to just nine second-chance efforts in the game.

Jenkins Makes His Mark
Freshman guard Curtis Jenkins (Farmingdale, N.Y.) made an immediate impact for Molloy in his first two career starts, averaging 15 points between contests versus Saint Anselm and Saint Michael's back in mid-November. Up until the Lions' win over Pace, however, Jenkins' scoring prowess had dipped while his performance in other statistics saw an increased uptake. The freshman stormed back with a vengeance, scoring a career-high 18 points versus the Setters, slashing and dashing his way to a 6-for-13 outing from the field (46%) and a 60% efficiency from the three-point range. Jenkins currently holds an average of 9.3 points per game, but his other stats (4.1 RPG, 2.1 SPG, 1.8 APG) speak volumes of how confident and determined the young star-in-waiting is for the maroon and white.

No. 1 Needs 19 For 1,000
Simply stated as such, it's easy to understand the goal that is ahead for senior guard Brandon Williams (Baldwin, N.Y.). Fans of the Molloy men's basketball team have been chronicling his journey to the four-digit point plateau since his sophomore season, when he poured in a career-high 414 points in the 2013-14 campaign. But now, the reality and the magnitude of the achievement have reached a climactic conclusion. Williams sits 19 points away from the 1,000-point mark for his career. The 19 points are a scoring output that he has reached 13 times in the last three seasons, with a 24-point night coming against the team he faces Wednesday---Bentley---in a 99-92 loss back on Dec. 9, 2014.

Player of the Year Buzz?
Making the engine go for this edition of the Molloy men's basketball team has been junior guard Jaylen Morris (Amherst, N.Y.). In the Lions' ten contests to this point, he has scored double-digit point totals in every single game. Morris has also collected five double-doubles thus far and is sporting the following team-best averages: 18.2 PPG; 8.2 RPG; 52.1% field-goal percentage. Morris was just a freshman when Molloy's most recent Player of the Year---John Petrucelli---made his incredible run to 2,000 career points, and the now-junior may be looking to set the East Coast Conference ablaze with a dominant second-half of his season. Should Morris succeed in impressing the ECC coaches, players, and fans alike, it is hard to say that he would not collect some accolades at the end of the campaign.

Fly, Falcons, Fly
Bentley University has a proud tradition when it comes to women's basketball, as Head Coach Barbara Stevens led the Falcons to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight 13 times over her 38-year career in Waltham, Mass. But on the men's side, the road to glory has proved to be tougher sledding for the black, white and blue of Bentley U. Jay Lawson has been the coach for 24 seasons at Bentley, and the Falcons have made three appearances in the NCAA Division II Elite Eight. This year has proven to be an impressive start as the Falcons have knocked off several big teams on their way to an 8-2 overall record, including a win over then-No. 20 Saint Anselm back on Dec. 2.

Three Players. Sixty-Six Points. Victory.
Bentley's last win came in a 76-53 demolition of Saint Michael's back on Dec. 12 in Colchester, Vt. in the team's most recent contest. Though the Falcons earned the victory as a team, Coach Lawson could have brought just three players and Bentley still would have walked away with the 'W'. That's at least how the statistics showcase it, as graduate guard Keegan Hyland (South Portland, Maine), and seniors Alex Furness (Wells, Maine) and Tyler McFarland (Rockport, Maine) combined for 66 total points against the Purple Knights. Hyland had a game-high 24, while Furness and McFarland each poured in 21 as the Maine contingent went 25-for-46 (54.3%) from the field in the Falcons' win.

Maine and Nova Scotia Get It Done For Bentley
It may come as no surprise that Hyland, Furness and McFarland are the three leading scorers for the Falcons thus far. McFarland has a team-best 24.8 PPG average to go along with a 6.4 RPG mark; Hyland has scored 16.6 points per game and 7.7 rebounds per contest; Furness, meanwhile, averages 16.1 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. But junior guard Ferguson Duke (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada) would like to remind the country that he is averaging 10 points per game, as well as a team-best 3.5 assists per game. While the fifth spot in the starting rotation has been interchangeable to start the year, the four members of the Maine-Nova Scotia grouping have started every single contest for the Falcons thus far.

Underrated?
Bentley has an overall record of 8-2 and a 6-0 mark in the Northeast-10 Conference. The Falcons' only losses come to three-time defending East Coast Conference champions Bridgeport and regionally-ranked Holy Family out of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference. Yet, neither the NABC nor the D2SIDA Media Polls have Bentley ranked inside the top-25. Curiously, Saint Anselm---whom Bentley defeated earlier this month---is in a three-way tie for No. 25 in the NABC rankings. Even stranger still, Bentley is third in the D2SIDA East Region Poll ahead of NE-10 rival Southern Connecticut, who is ranked twentieth in the NABC rankings. Granted, these polls mean nothing until the final one comes out in March, but it is bulletin board material for Coach Lawson and crew to take with them into their matchup with the Lions.