MANCHESTER, N.H. – The nationally-ranked Saint Anselm College men's basketball team saw its season come to an end on Saturday in the quarterfinals round of the NCAA Division II East Region Championship.
The top-seeded Hawks (22-8) posted an 80-71 defeat to the No. 8 seeded Cougars from Caldwell University (22-9) in Stoutenburgh Gymnasium in front of a capacity crowd. Caldwell moves on to face New Haven, the No. 4 seed, at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday in the semifinals.
Tyler Arbuckle (Bristol, Conn.) led the way with 19 points, including an 8-for-10 performance from the charity stripe, while producing seven rebounds and four assists. Miles Tention (Palo Alto, Calif.) saw his stellar Saint Anselm career come to an end with 17 points, four rebounds and four assists.
A member of his program's Final Four team as a freshman in 2018-19, Tention scored 1,393 points (exactly 12 points per game) in 116 contests to rank 20th all-time in team history. His 255 triples ranks eighth in team annals and his 43.1% three-point field goal percentage stands as the fifth-best rate.
No Hawks student-athlete has finished a career shooting over 43% from beyond the arc since Chris Conroy '05. Tention's 377 career assists stands 14th all-time and his 3,787 career minutes played is fifth for Saint Anselm – this season, his 1,144 minutes played is third in single-season history, just one spot ahead of Arbuckle's 1,121 minutes played.
Owen McGlashan (Marlton, N.J.) rounded out the double-digit point scorers for the Hawks with 15 points and seven rebounds to his credit. Matt Becker (Fairfield, Conn.) hauled in 14 rebounds, leading student-athletes from both sides. The Hawks were ranked as high as 16th nationally in the D2SIDA national media poll.
With the score tied at 15 with 11:36 to go in the first half, Caldwell unleashed a 10-2 run that ultimately led to the visitors posting 18 of the game's next 25 points. Staring at an eight-point deficit down the stretch, the Hawks conceded six-straight points leading into halftime – Saint Anselm, down by a 41-27 margin heading into the locker room, shot just 3-for-16 (18.8%) from beyond the arc in the opener.
The Hawks scored six of the first eight points of the second half, but Caldwell scored five in a row to take a game-high lead of 15 points just 4:17 in.
Saint Anselm made its best run of the game, firing off 23 of the next 32 points to trim the Cougars' game-high advantage to just one point, 57-56, with 6:40 remaining in regulation time. Arbuckle had seven of his team's 11 points across a nearly three-minute span, keeping the Hawks in the game.
Caldwell was simply too much for Saint Anselm in the game's final seven minutes and turned its one-point lead into a nine-point victory. The Cougars answered the Saint Anselm charge with 17 of the game's next 21 points, shooting five-for-seven from the floor and keeping the Hawks to just two field goals – Saint Anselm posted four turnovers in that span.
The Hawks outscored Caldwell by a 44-39 margin in the second half and a tough first half from beyond the arc ultimately prevented the comeback. The Cougars finished with 28 of the game's 34 fast-break points and punished Saint Anselm miscues, scoring 23 of the game's 26 points off turnovers.
Saint Anselm finished its 2022-23 campaign with 288 three-point baskets, ranking third in single-season history, and the team's 92 blocks is tied for third in program history. The Hawks have won at least 20 games for the eighth time in the last 10 seasons under the leadership of Head Coach Keith Dickson.
