Men's Hoops Completes Road Trip at UMass Lowell on Saturday Afternoon

UMBC is 1-8 on the road this season.
The Dawgs have lost seven straight contests for the first time since the 2015-2016 campaign.
The Retrievers are 0-2 in the America East for the first time since 2019-2020 when they opened with four straight defeats.
SO guard Dion Brown is 18th in the country with 115 field goals and is 71st with 283 points.
Graduate student forward Max Lorca-Lloyd is 32nd in the nation in rejections at 2.0 per game.
The Retrievers rank 47th in the country in bench points at 27.3 per game.
The Dawgs are 43rd nationally in 3-point field goal accuracy at 37.1 percent.

SERIES HISTORY

UMass Lowell has won 11of-18 all-time meetings against the Retrievers.
UMBC is 3-5 all-time at Costello Athletic Center
The Retrievers last won in Lowell in 2020, 65-50.
UML had won three straight in the series until the Retrievers won in Baltimore last season, 93-85.

A GLANCE AT THE RIVER HAWKS

UMass Lowell defeated NJIT, 70-62, on Thursday evening in Lowell to improve to 2-0 in the league.
SO Brayden O'Connor swished a career-high five three-pointers en route to a game-high 22 points.
O'Connor was one of four double-digit scorers for the River Hawks, as senior Ayinde Hikim tallied 12 points, and classmates Max Brooks and Quinton Mincey each chipped in with 11 points. Brooks added a season-high five blocks, while Mincey led the way on the glass with nine rebounds.
UMass Lowell was selected to finish second in the 2023-24 America East Preseason Coaches' Poll
On the heels of a historic, 26-win season that concluded in their second America East Championship game appearance in three years, the River Hawks received 55 points and three first-place votes in this year's poll. This marked the team's best preseason ranking since joining the America East.
Senior forward Abdoul Karim Coulibaly was named to the league's Preseason All-Conference Team. Coulibaly, who gives the River Hawks a presence on the Preseason All-Conference Team for the second straight year, is the team's top returning scorer after averaging 11.4 points per game on 58% shooting in 2022-23. He added a team-best 7.6 rebounds per game and eight double-doubles last season en route to America East Second Team honors.

WHO'S HOT

Brown has already recorded 20 or more points six times this season and is 4th in the America East in scoring at 16.6 ppg., 13th in fg percentage (.477) and 9th in rebounding (6.2 pg.). His 115 total field goals leads the circuit and he ranks 18th in the nation in the category. He needs 47 points to reach 500 in his early career.
Graduate student forward Khydarius Smith is 6th in the America East with a .587 shooting rate and is 10th on the circuit in scoring (12.9 ppg.). He missed two straight games with an elbow injury
Junior guard Devan Sapp has had the touch from long-range during non-conference slate. Sapp, who made just 8-of-29 (.276) treys in his initial season in Baltimore last year, is 23-for-54 (.426 percent) from distance and is 19th in the league with 1.4 3s per game.
Junior guard Marcus Banks Jr. is 3rd in the conference with 2.5 3-pt field goals per game and is 2nd in 3-pt percentage at .396 percent. He's averaging 18.0 ppg. over the first two conference contests. He needs just two more triples to notch 100 for his career.
FR guard Franck Emmou is 21-for-23 from the line this season (.913).
Lorca-Lloyd is second in the America East with 2.0 blocks per game. He is also 35th in the nation in the category.
Junior guard Bryce Johnson is 16th in the conference with 1.4 treys per game. Johnson scored a combined 17 points in the three contests prior to his 31-point explosion against American. The 31 points are the most a Retriever has produced since Keondre Kennedy's 31 versus NJIT (1/26/22).

BANKS DRILLS CAREER-HIGH SIX TREYS IN LOSS AT VERMONT

UMBC junior guard Marcus Banks Jr. buried a career-high six three-point field goals, but the Retrievers dropped a 77-72 decision against the Vermont Catamounts, in an America East Conference contest on Thursday evening at Patrick Gymnasium.
Banks, who also grabbed eight rebounds, scored 17 of his game-high 20 points in the second stanza as he connected on 6-of-10 from behind the arc for the game. Sophomore guard Dion Brown added 15 points and nine caroms while graduate student Max Lorca-Lloyd contributed a career-high 10 points along with three blocks.
The hosts (12-5, 2-0 America East) led for nearly the entire contest as the Catamounts jumped out to a 17-4 advantage at the 11:27 mark of the opening half.
The Retrievers closed the gap to 26-19 with 7:13 remaining after Banks drilled his first triple of the night but Vermont went on a 19-10 run to grab their largest lead of the half, 45-29 with 48 ticks left. The Catamounts settled for a 45-32 lead at the break as Brown connected on his only trey of the night just before halftime.
UMBC (5-12, 0-2 America East) refused to go away without a fight in the second half as they closed to 53-46 with 14:01 left. Banks capped a 14-8 spurt with back-to-back 3's and Brown scored six points during the stretch.
Vermont answered with five consecutive points, however, UMBC responded with seven straight of their own to trim the deficit to 58-53 with 10 minutes left. Lorca-Lloyd opened the spurt with consecutive buckets in the paint and Banks drilled another trifecta.
The visitors were still within just five, 60-55, after a driving hoop by Brown with 8:27 left, but Vermont reeled off eight straight points to widen their lead to 68-55 with just 5:33 remaining.
UMBC was never able to get closer than five points the rest of the way.
TJ Hurley led four Catamounts in double-figures with 14 points and was 3-for-4 from downtown.