MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College men's basketball team won the Northeast-10 Conference postseason championship for the 10th time in program history, thanks to a 65-54 victory over the University of New Haven on Saturday.

The second-seeded Hawks (22-7) took down the No. 4-seeded Chargers (20-10) in front of a sell-out crowd in Stoutenburgh Gymnasium, locking down the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division II postseason.

Senior Tyler Arbuckle (Bristol, Conn.) was selected as the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament, averaging 20 points per game across the three postseason contests for Saint Anselm. On Saturday, he scored 12 points with six assists and five rebounds to help the Hawks to victory.

Senior Miles Tention (Palo Alto, Calif.) and junior Matt Becker (Fairfield, Conn.) were also recognized on the conference's All-Tournament Team. Tention scored a team-best 24 points on Saturday while Becker handed out eight assists with as many rebounds.

Becker was also feted with the league's prestigious Elite 24 award, issued to the student-athlete at the championship site with the highest grade-point average. He becomes only the second in Saint Anselm history to collect such distinction (Jackie Gaumer '21, field hockey, 2019).

The 2023 NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Selection Show is slated to air on Sunday, Mar. 5 at 11 p.m. on NCAA.com. The Hawks were ranked No. 2 in the latest iteration of the official East Region rankings, trailing only Bentley who fell to Saint Anselm in the NE10 Semifinals.

Saint Anselm got off to a hot start early on, outscoring New Haven 21-10 over the first eight minutes. During that stretch, sophomore Zac Taylor (Victoria, Australia) and senior Owen McGlashan (Marlton, N.J.) combined for 13 points to get the home crowd into the game early.

After consecutive Tention three-pointers put the Hawks up by 17 with seven minutes remaining in the opening frame, the Chargers responded with an 11-0 run to cut the deficit to just six points, 31-25, with 3:25 left. Saint Anselm did settle down, scoring 11 of the final 15 points of the second half.

That 11-4 stretch by Saint Anselm was capped off by a three-point play from Tention to put the home team in front by a 42-29 score at halftime.

A strong New Haven defensive unit came out of the locker room for the second half, limiting Saint Anselm to just five points in the first 10-plus minutes of action. The Chargers fired off a 17-5 scoring run in total, keyed by a 6-for-10 shooting performance.

Ahead by just a 47-46 margin at that point, Saint Anselm concluded the game on an 18-8 spurt that saw Tention score seven of his team's 18 points.

New Haven played the foul game with under two minutes left in regulation, which resulted in the Hawks missing the front end of a one-on-one. The Chargers could not muster up anything on the offensive end, and with just over a minute to go, Tention jumped out on the fast break and slammed home a dunk to put the exclamation point on the victory.
 
The Hawks shot 36% (9-for-25) from beyond the arc and 47% overall, while the Chargers were held to just 37.5% shooting from the field. Despite losing the rebounding battle, 30-29, the Hawks were able to turn the Chargers over 12 times while committing just seven miscues of their own.

Arbuckle, McGlashan, Taylor, and Tention all scored in double figures for Saint Anselm, while Quashawn Lane and Tyrone Perry paced New Haven with a combined 40 points.