Men's Basketball Opens America East Slate Versus Bryant on Saturday Afternoon

UMBC is 4-3 at home this season.
The Retrievers have dropped two straight America East season-openers.
SO guard Dion Brown is 17th in the country with 98 field goals and is 55th with 246 points.
Graduate student forward Max Lorca-Lloyd is 35th in the nation in rejections at 2.0 per game.
The Dawgs are 62nd nationally in 3-point field goal accuracy at 36.9 percent.
The Retrievers rank 45th in the country in bench points at 28.4 per game.
UMBC began their 56th season at Louisville on Nov. 6. This is the 38th season of DI hoops for the Black and Gold.

SERIES HISTORY

Saturday's game will mark just the 3rd meeting between UMBC and Bryant.
UMBC came away with an 81-73 victory in Smithfield, Rhode Island in the first of two contests last season. Colton Lawrence paced the Retrievers with 19 points while Sherif Gross-Bullock had 18 for the hosts.
The Retrievers erased a seven-point halftime deficit to defeat Bryant, 76-73, last season in Baltimore. Tra'Von Fagan scored 18 points for UMBC while Gross-Bullock poured in 38 for the Bulldogs.

A GLANCE AT THE BULLDOGS

Bryant is coming off a 95-78 loss at No. 24 ranked Ole Miss on Sunday afternoon.
Graduate student guard Sherif Gross-Bullock scored 24 points and handed out five assists while senior guard Earl Timberlake added 19 points and 12 rebounds
Gross-Bullock is 2nd in the league in scoring at 17.6 ppg. and leads the America East in 3-point field goals per game (3.3). Junior guard Rafael Pinzon is adding 13.1 ppg., which ranks 13th in the league.
Timberlake is 3rd in the conference with 8.9 rebounds per game, ranks 4th in assists (4.6 pg.), and 14th in scoring (13.0 ppg.). Daniel Rivera leads the conference with 2.1 blocks per game and is 7th in rebounding (6.3).
The Bulldogs were projected to finish third in the America East Preseason poll. Gross-Bullock and Timberlake were both selected to the Preseason All-Conference Team. Bryant was the only team in the league to have two players selected.

WHO'S HOT

Brown has already recorded 20 or more points five times this season and is 5th in the America East in scoring at 16.4 ppg., 10th in fg percentage (.500) and 12th in rebounding (5.7 pg.). His 98 total field goals leads the circuit and he ranks 17th in the nation in the category.
Graduate student forward Khydarius Smith is 6th in the America East with a .587 shooting rate and is 15th on the circuit in scoring (12.9 ppg.).
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 22-for-50 (.440 percent) from distance and is 15th in the league with 1.6 3s per game.
Junior guard Marcus Banks Jr. is 4th in the conference with 2.1 3-pt field goals per game and is 7th in 3-pt percentage at .364 percent.
FR guard Franck Emmou is 20-for-21 from the line this season (.952).
Lorca-Lloyd is second in the America East with 2.0 blocks per game and is 35th in the nation in the category.
Junior guard Bryce Johnson is 14th in the conference with 1.5 treys per game. He 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).

MASSIVE COMEBACK ATTEMPT COMES UP JUST SHORT AGAINST AMERICAN

UMBC nearly came all the way back from a 22-point second-half deficit but fell just short against the American Eagles, 87-85, on Friday evening at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena.
Johnson scored a career-high 31 points to pace UMBC, who dropped to 5-10 on the season. Johnson connected on 11-of-16 field goal attempts and went 6-for-9 from behind the arc. The six treys tied his career-best and was also a season-high. Brown (8 rebounds), UMBC's leading scorer, was held to nine points and fouled out late in the second half. Lorca-Lloyd recorded eight points, eight rebounds and added a pair of blocks.
The hosts jumped out to a 15-8 advantage 5:11 into the contest as Johnson scored eight quick points. American, however, scored nine straight points to take their first lead of the night at 17-15 with 13:19 left in the stanza.
UMBC was within 26-23 after graduate student Khydarius Smith made a pair of free throws with 8:54 left in the half but the visitors reeled off 13 consecutive points over the next 3:30 to claim a 16-point lead and settled for a 47-31 lead at intermission.
American's lead grew to 22 points with 13:51 left after Elijah Stephens converted a floater in the lane.
UMBC still trailed by 22 with 12:18 remaining but continued to fight back. The Retrievers went on a 16-6 run to trim the deficit to 76-64 at the 8:15 mark as Johnson capped the spurt with a triple.
American (6-7) answered back with five straight points to grab an 81-64 edge with 6:42 left, however, Brown buried back-to-back treys and then Banks Jr. followed with a trifecta to trim the deficit to 81-73 with 4:44 on the clock.
Lorca-Lloyd and sophomore forward Regimantas Ciunys then scored consecutive buckets in the paint to bring UMBC within just four points, completing a 13-0 run for the hosts.
The visitors stopped the bleeding by making 3-of-4 free throws to increase their lead to 84-77 with just 1:07 remaining.
UMBC managed to close within 85-83 after freshman guard Franck Emmou drilled a 3-pointer from the top of the circle with 12 seconds left.
Geoff Sprouse, however, made two free throws with six seconds left to ice the game before Lorca-Lloyd's dunk with one second left.
The Retrievers made a season-high 16 3s as they went 16-for-33 (48.5 percent) on the night. American drained 15-of-31 (48.4 percent) from behind the arc and finished 31-of-58 (53.4 percent) overall.
UMBC outrebounded the visitors by a 37-31 margin and had 11 offensive boards compared to just five by the Eagles.