BUFFALO, NY - The Merrimack men's basketball team, fresh off winning the MAAC Regular Season Championship outright, travels to upstate New York to face Canisius on Friday, before concluding the regular season at Niagara on Sunday.
THE LATEST
• Merrimack clinched the outright MAAC Regular Season Championship Sunday with a double-overtime victory over Iona, giving the Warriors the No. 1 seed in next week's MAAC Championship and a win over every team in the conference this season.
Kevair Kennedy scored 20 points for his 9th 20-point game in double-figures in the last 11 contests.
Ernest Shelton had 18 points, while
Tye Dorset (15),
Todd Brogna (13) and Andrés Marrero (12) also reached double-figures.
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Joe Gallo and the Warriors have won 4 conference regular season championships in 7 years in Division I and Gallo's 4th 20-win season in 10 years as a coach.
• The Warriors have the best MAAC conference record since joining the league last season, with a 30-8 conference record, ahead of Quinnipiac (26-12) and Marist (25-14) for the best record over the last two seasons. For the 33rd time in 39 MAAC games, the Warriors enter a contest in first place in the conference standings.
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Kevair Kennedy has put himself in position to sweep the MAAC Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year honors. He has swept the MAAC Player and Rookie of the Week awards in back-to-back weeks and is now a 6x MAAC Rookie of the Week. Kennedy is leading the league in scoring at 18.3 ppg and is also averaging a league-best 20.7 ppg in conference games. He has scored in double-figures in all but one collegiate game - including 27 straight. He leads Merrimack and is 4th in the conference in assists (4.1 apg) and ranks 4th in the league in steals (2.0 spg).
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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 25 of the 28 games. He has made a 3-pointer in every game and has 12 3s in the last four games.
• The Warriors have won 8-straight, 10 of the last 11 and are 18-3 in the last 21 games. Merrimack finished 11-0 at home, the first Warrior team to go undefeated at home since the 1990-91 team also went 11-0.
• The Warriors are 11-0 when they scores 70 points or more and are 2nd in the MAAC in steals (8.21) and turnover margin (+2.97).
• 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 the last three games that ended in regulation.
