Men's Basketball To Play Syracuse In Preseason Exhibition Game

5/18/2023 10:08:00 AM

By: CONTACT: Tom McDermott, Director of Athletics Communications | tmcdermo@daemen.edu

AMHERST, N.Y. - Daemen University men's basketball coach Mike MacDonald has announced that the Wildcats will take on Syracuse University in an exhibition game prior to the upcoming 2023-24 season. The game will take place on Friday, October 27 at the JMA Wireless Dome, a venue that seats 34,616 spectators for basketball. A tip-off time is still to be determined.

"We like to provide our players with unique and special experiences during their time at Daemen, and this game certainly fits the bill," said MacDonald, who will be coaching his 10^th season at Daemen. "The chance for our players to go up against an ACC team in that iconic building is something I'm sure they will be looking forward to and will stay with them for years to come."

It will mark the second time that Daemen has faced Syracuse in an exhibition game. The teams previously met prior to the 2019-20 season, with the Orangemen posting a 90-71 victory before nearly 6,000 spectators. Daemen teams have squared off against Canisius College, Siena College, the University at Buffalo and the University of Pennsylvania in exhibition games during MacDonald's time at Daemen. An 83-81 overtime win over Canisius in MacDonald's Daemen coaching debut (Nov. 11, 2014) remains the highlight of the bunch for Wildcat fans.

The Wildcats will return all five starters and a total of 13 players from their 2022-23 team which went 20-8 overall and 12-4 in the East Coast Conference. The Wildcats advanced to the ECC Tournament championship game, where they suffered a 72-66 loss to top-seed St. Thomas Aquinas College. MacDonald will enter the season with a record of 179-74 with the Wildcats. He will be entering his 26th year as a collegiate head coach and owns an overall career record of 436-300.

Daemen has posted at least 20 wins in five of the last six seasons (Daemen only played 16 games during the COVID-19 shortened 2020-21 season) and advanced to the NCAA Division II Tournament in 2019, 2020 and 2021--claiming its first-ever NCAA East Region title and advancing to the Division II "Elite Eight" in 2021.

All-ECC selections Joey Atkins (Watervliet, N.Y.), Dylan Fasoyiro (Houston, Tex.), Nick MacDonald (Amherst, N.Y.) and Andrew Mason (Webster, N.Y.) all return in 2023-24. Atkins earned first-team All-ECC honors in his first season as a starter last year after averaging 11.9 points and 6.2 rebounds. He also ranked eighth among all Division II players in blocks (65). Fasoyiro averaged a team-high 13.4 points in his first season with the team, while MacDonald contributed 12.4 points. Mason averaged 10.9 points and led all three NCAA divisions in three-point field goal percentage (.516) this past year.

Veterans Ryan Salzberg (Manlius, N.Y.) and Justin Hemphill (Buffalo, N.Y.) also return. Salzberg, a 6-foot-4 point guard, started all 28 games last year and averaged 32 minutes a game. Hemphill, a 6-foot-6 forward, is coming off a breakout season in which he averaged 9.0 points and a team-high 6.5 rebounds off the bench.

Syracuse went 17-15 overall and 10-10 in Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) play last season. It marked the final season in the storied career of Hall of Fame head coach Jim Boeheim, who led the Orangemen to 35 NCAA Tournament appearances in his 47 seasons on the bench. Longtime associate head coach Adrian Autry was introduced as the new head coach this past March. Two of the top three scorers from last year have transferred, while the third has entered the NBA draft process and has until May 31 to decide if he is going to return to Syracuse. Joe Girard, who made 88 three-pointers and averaged a team-high 16.4 points last year, has transferred to Clemson University. Jesse Edwards, a 6-foot-11 center who contributed 14.5 points and a team-high 10.3 rebounds per game last year, will spend his fifth year of eligibility at West Virginia University. Judah Mintz, a 6-foot-3 guard who averaged 16.3 points and 4.6 assists as freshman, announced in March that he was entering the NBA draft process. Benny Williams, a 6-foot-9 forward and Chris Bell, a 6-foot-7 forward, are both expected to return. Williams started 24 games last year as a sophomore, while Bell started 30 of 32 games as freshman. Sophomore transfer JJ Starling, a 6-foot-4 guard who averaged 11.2 points per game at the University of Notre Dame last year, is expected to make immediate contributions.

Ticket information for the October 27 exhibition will be announced at a later time.

Daemen University features the premier NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 17 intercollegiate teams. For the latest information on Daemen Athletics, follow the Wildcats via social media on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, or sign up to receive customizable news alerts, e-mail newsletters and weekly schedule alerts.

Follow the Daemen men's basketball program on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at @DaemenMBB.

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