MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College men's basketball team will face-off against its long-time rival, Bentley University, on Wednesday, Mar 1 at 7 p.m. in the Northeast-10 Conference Semifinals.

No. 2 seed SAINT ANSELM COLLEGE HAWKS (20-7)
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No. 3 seed, No. 15/24 BENTLEY UNIVERSITY FALCONS (21-5)
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Saint Anselm (20-7), the No. 2 seed in the NE10 postseason, will face the No. 3-seeded (and nationally-ranked) Falcons (21-5) in the conference's semifinals round. The winner of Wednesday's showdown will face either No. 1 Southern N.H. or No. 4 New Haven in the NE10 Championship game on Saturday.

Bentley is ranked as high as 15th in NCAA Division II, according to the Division II Sports Information Director's Association Media Poll, and is No. 24 in the country in the National Association of Basketball Coaches' poll released on Tuesday.

The Hawks and Falcons will meet for the 19th time in the NE10 postseason, the most common opponent in Saint Anselm history. Each team has won nine games in the series, but the Hawks have won five of the last seven NE10 postseason games since Mar. 5, 2005.

Saint Anselm is in pursuit of its 10th postseason championship within the Northeast-10 – no other team has more than four NE10 championships (Bentley, American Int'l, Assumption, Stonehill – four).

Tickets will be sold at the door and cost $10 for adults. Youths (under 18 years of age) may gain entry for $5 with students from Northeast-10 institutions admitted free of charge with valid institutional identification.

SCOUTING SAINT ANSELM

• Saint Anselm locked down a 78-70 victory over Pace in the NE10 Quarterfinals played on Sunday, Feb. 26. The Setters entered the game with back-to-back victories over Saint Anselm during the regular season, but could not complete the three-peat.
• The Hawks have now won each of their last five NE10 postseason games played in Stoutenburgh Gymnasium, including the 2020 conference championship over New Haven.
• Pace led by three with 3:45 left in regulation time, but the Hawks closed the game on a dominant 11-0 run to lock down the victory. The five Hawks starters each scored at least 11 points in the victory, led by senior Tyler Arbuckle (Bristol, Conn.) and his 23 points and four assists.
• Arbuckle and Miles Tention (Palo Alto, Calif.) earned First Team All-Conference honors from the Northeast-10 on Monday. The Hawks last featured two First Team All-NE10 picks in 2005-06 when Matt Cahill '06 and Jim Moore '06 were so honored.
• A first-time All-Conference pick, Arbuckle is averaging 17.8 points per game (second in the NE10) while shooting nearly 50% from the floor (171-for-348, 49.1%). Pouring home three-pointers at a 45.5% rate (55-for-121), Arbuckle reached 1,000 career points on Jan. 21 against Southern Connecticut State.
• Tention has now earned First, Second (2021-22) and Third (2019-20) Team distinction in his career. This season, he is averaging 15.4 points per game for Saint Anselm and ranks second in NCAA Division II in minutes played per game (38.0). He ranks third nationally with a 48.2% three-point field goal percentage (68-for-141, 48.2%) while leading the league in the latter metric.
• Tention finds himself in a tie for 21st place all-time in team history with 1,343 career points, equaling the output of Saint Anselm Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Darlington Okerulu '06, doing so in six fewer games.
• Saint Anselm is ranked No. 2 in the latest set of official NCAA East Region Rankings, trailing only Bentley. The regional rankings are used to help determine the qualifiers for the NCAA postseason.
• The Hawks rank third in NCAA Division II in three-point field goal percentage (40.8%) and are ninth in fouls per game, committing just 13.4 per tilt to rank fourth in the NE10. Saint Anselm has canned 9.6 triples per game, leading the league while ranking 31st in the nation.
• In the regular-season finale on Tuesday, Feb. 21, Head Coach Keith Dickson picked up his 700th career victory, defeating New Haven by a 65-64 score to conclude the regular season of NE10 play.
• The longest-tenured men's basketball coach in Saint Anselm history, Dickson improved (at the time) to 700-360 (.660) in his head coaching career that dates back to the 1986-87 season. He ranks fifth among active NCAA Division II head coaches in wins and is 16th among active NCAA head coaches in any division.
• The winningest Head Coach in the history of the NE10 in terms of victories, Dickson is one of just five active NCAA head coaches (any division) with 700 victories while only coaching at one institution (Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Steve Ridder, Embry-Riddle; Tom Klusman, Rollins; Brian Baptiste, UMass Dartmouth).

SCOUTING BENTLEY

• The Falcons are coming off a 78-67 victory over Le Moyne in the NE10 Quarterfinals. Junior Zach Laput, the league's leading point scorer, logged a double-double of 29 points and 11 rebounds to deliver the team to the next round.
• Bentley kept the Dolphins to just 37% shooting and owned a plus-20 rebound margin on the way to the win. The Falcons committed 14 turnovers while Le Moyne produced just six miscues, but Bentley scored 20 points on second-chance opportunities and dominated the paint, 36-to-18.
• Laput was selected as the NE10 Player of the Year on Monday and also earned a spot on the conference's First Team. He is averaging 20.7 points and 6.8 rebounds for Bentley, who has won 21 of its 26 games this season.
• Matt Leritz, a transfer from Illinois Wesleyan, was a Second Team selection after averaging nearly a double-double per game this season (14.2 ppg, 9.4 rpg) and Mason Webb was a Third Team pick after delivering exactly 14 points per tilt in 2022-23.
• Webb's 90.4% career free throw percentage ranks third among active NCAA Division II student-athletes. He is also 12th among performers across all three NCAA divisions in that statistic.
• Nationally, Bentley is second in fouls committed per game (12.3), third in rebound margin (+9.9), fifth in defensive rebounds per game (29.88) and 13th in three-point field goal percentage (39.9%), trailing only Saint Anselm among NE10 institutions.
• The Falcons also find themselves atop the NE10 in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.38), assists per game (16.5), overall field goal percentage (49.8%), rebounds per game (39.27), scoring margin (+12.6), scoring offense (80.3 ppg), and three-point percentage defense (32.2).
• Head Coach Jay Lawson, who attended the University of New Hampshire alongside Hawks coach Keith Dickson, has compiled a 606-302 (.667) record at the helm of the Falcons program.
• Dickson was an Assistant Coach at Bentley for four seasons (1980-84) under then Head Coach Brian Hammel.

ALL-TIME, NE10 POSTSEASON

• The Hawks trail only Bentley (40) for NE10 postseason appearances with 39 in the team's 40 seasons of competition in the conference. Saint Anselm is the far-and-away leader in NE10 postseason winning percentage (57-31, .648) and has won a league-leading nine titles.
• Saint Anselm has now made it to the NE10 Semifinals on 26 occasions and has played in the NE10 title game on 14 occasions, settling for a league runner-up placement just five times. The 26 semifinals appearances is a league record, six more than Bentley (20) has reached.
• Including last season's NE10 postseason championship, Bentley owns a 36-35 (.507) record in the NE10 postseason. The Falcons are looking to make their 11th appearance in the league's championship game and their third since the 2015-16 campaign.

ALL-TIME vs. BENTLEY

• Bentley holds the 53-51 advantage in the all-time series that dates back to Dec. 8, 1975, a 91-75 win for the Falcons.
• The Falcons have won four of the last five games since the start of the 2021-22 campaign. Bentley has won four in a row over the Hawks in games played at the Dana Center.
• Saint Anselm has a 9-2 record over Bentley when competing in Stoutenburgh Gymnasium since Mar. 2, 2014, an NE10 Quarterfinals showdown.