Men's Basketball Hits the Road to Face Fairleigh Dickinson

The Blue Devils play three straight Northeast Conference road games.

January 3, 2018

The Central Connecticut men's basketball team plays the first of three straight road games when it faces Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday night. The Blue Devils and Knights are both coming off their first loss in Northeast Conference play on Sunday. CCSU fell to Robert Morris, while FDU fell at Sacred Heart.

CCSU had its three-game win streak stopped in a 71-57 loss to the Colonials. The Knights fell, 66-65, at Sacred Heart. The Pioneers were awarded the game-winning basket with 2.8 seconds remaining to down FDU.

All CCSU home games and Northeast Conference games are available to watch online, for free, at NECFrontRow.com.

GAMEDAY INFORMATION | Rothman Center (Hackensack, NJ)

CCSU (8-7, 1-1 NEC) at Fairleigh Dickinson (4-9, 1-1 NEC) | Thursday, Jan. 4 | 7:00 PM
VIDEO (NECFrontRow) | LIVE STATS | @KizerBlueDevil (In-game Twitter updates)

GAME NOTES | 2017-18 NCAA Rules Review Video

TODAY'S GAME • Central Connecticut plays its first two road games of the Northeast Conference season this week. The Blue Devils travel to Fairleigh Dickinson on Jan. 4 before heading to Mount St. Mary's on Jan. 6.

SERIES HISTORY • The Blue Devils and Knights are meeting for the 42nd time. Fairleigh Dickinson leads the all-time series, 24-17, and has won the last six meetings in the series.

LAST TIME OUT • Central Connecticut was stopped by Robert Morris 71-57 on Sunday at Detrick Gymnasium. The Blue Devils offense was forced into 16 turnovers and held to 33.3 percent shooting, while the Colonials took advantage of the three-point shot, hitting seven three-pointers in the first half to build a double-digit lead. Junior Deion Bute led Central with 14 points and eight rebounds to go with two blocked shots. The Colonials were able to take the lead for good in the first half by virtue of their three-point shooting. Robert Morris used a 10-2 run midway through the first half to turn a one-point game into a 25-16 lead. RMU scored four straight points before senior Mustafa Jones got a steal and dunk at the other end to make it 19-16. Dachon Burke and Charles Bain followed with back-to-back three-pointers to push the Colonials lead to nine points. Robert Morris, which went 7-of-11 from the arc in the first half, would stretch the lead to 36-24 after a Jon Williams trey. Jones would hit two foul shots for CCSU just before halftime to cut the deficit to 36-26 at halftime. Following a Jones dunk, Robert Morris would push the lead to to 51-30 after scoring 11 straight points just over five minutes into the second half. Charles Bain would have six points in the spurt and a Ronnie Gombe three-point play with 13:34 to play closed out the run. The lead would be as much as 63-38 with 8:04 remaining, before Central would score six straight points, including a pair of foul shots and a layup from Bute. Bute's layup would make it 63-44 with 6:12 to play. The Blue Devils scored the final five points of the night on two free throws from freshman Talek Williams and a three-pointer by freshman Kashaun Hicks for the final margin.

OFFENSIVE BENCHMARKS • CCSU is 5-1 when shooting 50% or better from the field and 7-1 when scoring at least 70 points. Central's only loss when reaching those marks was in the opener, when CCSU scored 84 points and shot .518 at Hartford.

BLUE DEVILS SIGN TWO FOR 2018-19 • Head coach Donyell Marshall announced the signings of Michael Underwood and Karrington Wallace to join the squad in 2018-19. Underwood is a 6-foot-5 wing from Southwest HS (Fort Worth, TX). A shooter, he earned District 7-5A Offensive MVP as a junior. Wallace, a 6-foot-7 forward from Archbishop Wood (Warminster, PA) helped the Vikings go 28-3 and win a 5A state title in 2017.

UP NEXT • Tonight begins a three-game road stretch for CCSU, before it returns home to host Bryant on Saturday, Jan. 13. The Blue Devils have gone 4-6 in road contests thus far in 2017-18.