Men's Basketball Falls at No. 1 Daemen in NCAA East Regional

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AMHERST, N.Y. – Making their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018, the eighth-seeded University of Bridgeport men's basketball team was defeated at top-ranked and top-seeded Daemen University (28-0) on Saturday night by a score of 80-68. The Purple Knights' sensational season comes to an end with an overall record of 19-13.

Bridgeport, which made the Big Dance courtesy of winning the CACC championship last weekend, hung tough against the only undefeated team left in college basketball.

UB trailed by seven at halftime and kept to within 9-11 points for the majority of the second half.

Daemen ultimately utilized a 10-4 spurt over a 4:26 span to take a 15-point edge with less than three minutes left in the contest.

Bridgeport was led by 16 points from Aliou Cisse, who finished 7-for-11 from the field. Cisse, the CACC's Player of the Year, also added two steals and a block in the contest.

Cisse's terrific junior campaign completes with a scoring average of 19.7 points per game while shooting over 53-percent from the field.

Three other Purple Knights finished in double figures on Saturday night, including Justin Hendrick (14 pts), Caleb Jacobs (13 pts) and Amadou Traore (10 pts).

Jacobs also led the Purple Knights with five assists while Hendrick nabbed a team-high six rebounds.

Defensively, Nick Traill earned a team-best three steals. In total, UB finished with 10 takeaways from seven different players.

As a team, Bridgeport finished 26-of-60 (43.3%) from the field, 8-for-19 from three-point range and 8-for-16 from the free-throw line.