The Notre Dame College Falcons men's basketball team will open the 2021-22 campaign with a pair of games in the Conference Challenge that pits teams from the Mountain East Conference (MEC) and the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC.) The Falcons will face Slippery Rock on Friday night at 5 PM before they face Seton Hill at 5 PM on Saturday.
Coach Mark Richmond talked about how excited he is to get going:
" We're looking forward to playing two quality PSAC opponents this weekend,"Richmond stated. It will be a good early gauge for our team. I'm proud of how our guys have prepared so now i'm excited to see how we play when it really counts. I don't expect us to be perfect but if we play with great energy and effort we can have a successful weekend."
NDC returns a trio of players who started last season in Mike Sampson, Tyland Crawford, and John Godinez. Sampson put up 11.2 points and grabbed 10.2 rebounds per contest, while setting the NDC program record shooting at a 74 percent clip from the floor in the pandemic shortened season. Sampson led the MEC in total offensive rebounds. Crawford netted 13.4 points per game, while grabbing 5.8 rebounds per contest, while Godinez who started 14 of the 17 games as a freshman last season contributed 7.9 points per night. Elijah Barnett started nine games last season and had 60 total rebounds. The Falcons averaged 79.8 points per game, while allowing 81.5 per night. As a team they shot 47.7 percent from the field- and- 38.6 percent from the 3-point line. NDC was +3.6 rebounds per contest on the season as well.
Richmond talked about how nice it is to have some key guys back:
"We are excited to have Mike back who averaged a double-double last season, and to have guys like John and Tyland who were key contributors as well as some other guys who played a role last season. "
The first opponent for the Falcons will be "The Rock." (Friday night at Morrow Field House.) They were 15-14 (11-11 PSAC) in the 2019-20 season (which is the last season they played.) They return Lashon Lindsey, Nik Cazacu, and Eric Taylor from that team. Linsey started seven games and shot 40 percent from the 3-point line on his way to 3.9 points per game. Cazacu started eight games, starting three, and posted 1.9 points per night while Taylor also saw limited action.
They averaged 74.2 points per game, while allowing 74.3 points per night that season. They were +4.3 rebounds per game as a team. The two teams split a pair of meetings with "The Rock" winning 78-76 in 2019.
The Seton Hill Griffins will be the opponent on Saturday night. They will suit up seven juniors, six freshman, and four sophomores.Jimmy Moon was the teams second leading scorer putting up 12.1 points per game. He appeared in 18 games, making 17 starts. Led the team with 6.7 rebounds per night. Drew Green started all 26 contests Averaged 7.2 points and 3.8 rebounds per night in the 2019-20 season. As a team Seton Hill went 4-22 (3-11 PSAC) in the most recently played season.
Richmond talked about one of the biggest challenges ahead:
"One of the biggest challenges for us leading up to this weekend is that the PSAC did not play any games last season, so we have limited film, and do not really know a lot about what these teams rosters are going to look like. We are excited to get the year started though, and have some normalcy. It will be nice to play games in front of fans again."
As always you can catch all the action on NotreDameFalcons.com
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