Saint Anselm, UNH men set to host tourney basketball games on Saturday

The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester
·2 min read

Mar. 2—The Saint Anselm College men's basketball team is back in a familiar spot: the Northeast 10 Conference tournament championship game.

Junior Matt Becker scored 32 points — 22 in the second half — as the Hawks rallied past Bentley 71-70 in a league semifinal at Stoutenburgh Gym in Goffstown on Wednesday night.

Saint Anselm, which will be playing in its 15th conference final — the Hawks have won 10 titles — will host New Haven on Saturday at 6 p.m.

New Haven beat Southern New Hampshire University 59-42 at the Stan Spirou Field House in Manchester in the league's other semifinal.

UNH, meanwhile, will host Bryant in an America East quarterfinal at Lundholm Gym on Saturday. Game time is set for 1 p.m. (ESPN+, WUNH 91.3 FM)

The Wildcats survived an upset bid by NJIT on Tuesday night, winning 59-58, then watched as Maine upset Bryant in Orono and UMBC beat Binghamton. Those results left UNH (14-14 overall) as the No. 3 seed in the tournament and Bryant as the No. 6 seed. In the other AE quarterfinals on Saturday, No. 1 Vermont hosts No. 9 NJIT, No. 2 UMass Lowell hosts No. 7 Maine, and No. 4 UMBC hosts No. 5 Binghamton.

UNH, which won three of its last four games, is the league's No. 3 seed for a third straight season.

At Stoutenburgh Gym on Wednesday, the second-seeded Hawks scored their last points of the game with 4:40 to play, on a Miles Tention bucket, to give the hosts a 71-63 lead. Bentley's last points of the game came with 1:58 left on Brian Wright-Kinsey's layup. The Falcons turned the ball over twice in the final minute.

Senior Tyler Arbuckle was Saint Anselm's only other double-figures scorer, with 25 points.

Zach Laput led third-seeded Bentley with 21 points.

Across Manchester, SNHU had trouble putting the ball in the basket. The No. 3 seeds shot 26% from the floor (to 39% for New Haven), fell behind 26-16 at halftime and never got closer than eight points the rest of the way. Evan Guillory led SNHU with 12 points on 5-for-19 shooting.