MAAC Champion Men's Basketball Hosts Iona On Senior Day

NORTH ANDOVER, MA - The Merrimack men's basketball looks to clinch the outright MAAC Regular Season Championship on Sunday, hosting Iona a 1 p.m.

Seniors Aliou Cisse, Malik Edmead, Brandon Legris, Andrés Marrero and Jaylen Stinson will be honored on Senior Day.

THE LATEST
• Merrimack clinched a share of the MAAC Regular Season Championship Friday with a thrilling 79-72 overtime win over Siena on Friday in a sold out Lawler Arena. Kevair Kennedy scored a career-high 32 points, for his 8th game with 20+ points in the last 10 games. Ernest Shelton hit 5 3s and had 17 points and Tye Dorset had 13.
• The Warriors have won 4 conference regular season championships in 7 years in Division I. A victory Sunday would clinch the MAAC Regular Season title outright, along with give Joe Gallo his 4th 20-win season.
 • The Warriors have the best MAAC conference record since joining the league last season, with a 29-8 conference record, ahead of Quinnipiac (26-11) and Marist (24-14) for the best record over the last two seasons. For the 32nd time in 38 MAAC games, the Warriors enter a contest in first place in the conference standings.
• Iona is the only MAAC team that Joe Gallo has not defeated.
• Kevair Kennedy has put himself in position to sweep the MAAC Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year honors. He just swept the MAAC Player and Rookie of the Week awards on Monday and is now a 5x MAAC Rookie of the Week. Kennedy is leading the league in scoring at 18.3 ppg and is also averaging a league-best 20.8 ppg in conference games. He has scored in double-figures in all but one collegiate game - including 26 straight. He  leads Merrimack and is 5th in the conference in assists (4.0 apg) and ranks 4th in the league in steals (1.9 spg).
• Ernest Shelton, a high school teammate of Kevair Kennedy at Philadelphia's Father Judge High School, is second on the team and 6th in the MAAC in scoring at 16.0 points per game.  Shelton, a Division II transfer from Gannon University in Erie, PA, has scored 20 or more points 6 times, and in double figures in 24 of the 27 games. He has made a 3-pointer in every game and has 9 threes in the last three games.
• The Warriors have won 7-straight, 9 of the last 10 and are 17-3 in the last 20 games. Merrimack is 10-0 at home and will be looking to become the first Warrior team to go undefeated at home since the 1990-91 team went 11-0.
• The Warriors are 11-0 when they scores 70 points or more and are 2nd in the MAAC in steals (8.18) and turnover margin (+2.74).
• The Warriors #MakeChaos zone defense has continued to cause problems for opponents. Merrimack has allowed over 66 points in regulation only 4x in the last 20 games and held teams under 60 points in 3 of the last 4 and 6 of the last 9.