Staten Island, NY -  The Wagner men's basketball team returns home to the Spiro Sports Center for a pivotal Northeast Conference (NEC) contest against the Saint Francis U Red Flash on Thursday evening. Both teams enter Thursday's contest with identical 4-4 conference records and are currently tied for the fourth in the NEC standings. Wagner will look for back-to-back wins as they defeated the Sacred Heart University Pioneers, 67-62, at the William H. Pitt Center on Saturday afternoon. Senior guard Michael Carey recorded his 21st career double-double, after scoring a game-high 22 points and grabbing a team-best 10 rebounds in the victory. The Saint Francis U Red Flash will look to bounce back from a heartbreaking, 84-83, overtime loss at home on Saturday to Central Connecticut.  

Operation Gratitude: Wagner Athletics is partaking in Operation Gratitude, an organization that puts care packages together to send to troops overseas. Thursday night is the first of two nights in which Wagner Athletics is sponsoring the initiative, with the second night coming on Monday, January 28 as the Wagner women's basketball team hosts St. Francis Brooklyn. To help us with this effort, fans attending both contests are encouraged see the wishlist below as well as a message from our student-athletes. Fans, if you donate three items, you will receive a free ticket. Wishlist of items to donate at the game: https://www.operationgratitude.com/wishlist/

Suits and Sneakers: The Wagner coaching staff is participating in the NABC Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers week to help support cancer research and awareness. Members of the coaching staff will be wearing sneakers with their suits in their games against Saint Francis U and St. Francis Brooklyn on Saturday. 



All-Time Series: Thursday evening marks the 67th all-time meeting between the two schools with the head-to-head series knotted at 33 apiece. The Seahawks and the Red Flash split their regular season meetings last year, with each winning on their home court. In the February 25 meeting, in which the Green & White defeated the Red Flash, 69-54, Wagner captured its second ever Northeast Conference (NEC) regular season title.

The Coaches: Wagner's Bashir Mason, the 2015-16 Jim Phelan NEC Coach of the Year, is in his fifth season as the head coach of the Wagner Seahawks, owning a career record of 79-65. Mason is 5-2 against the Red Flash. Saint Francis' Rob Krimmel, who is in his fifth season, enters Thursday's game against Wagner with a record of 51-90 and is 34-44 in league play. Coach Krimmel, who was a three-year starter for the Red Flash (1996-00) and two-year captain (1998-00) is 2-5 against the Seahawks as a head coach. 

Scouting The Saint Francis U Red Flash: The Saint Francis U Red Flash, who were predicted to finish  ninth in the annual NEC Preseason Coaches' Poll, is currently tied for fourth with Wagner in the league standings, with a record of 7-12 and 4-4 in league play. The Red Flash will look to bounce back after suffering a last-second 84-83 overtime setback on Saturday at home to Central Connecticut.  In that contest, Jamaal King led the way for SFU with 20 points. Freshman Keith Braxton, who claimed his third NEC Rookie of the Week honor on Monday, averaged a double-double over the last two game with 20.0 points and 11.0 rebounds in the Red Flash's split. He also recorded 2.0 assists and 3.5 steals and shot 65.4 percent from the field. He is averaging 13.5 ppg and 17.8 in conference-only tilts while pacing all NEC newcomers in rebounding at 8.6 and field-goal percentage at 54.6 percent.  King paces four Red Flash players who are averaging in double-figures as he is netting 13.8 ppg. Braxton is the team's second-leading scorer at 13.5 ppg while Isaiah Blackmon and Josh Nebo are pouring in 11.8 and 11.3 points per game, respectively. King has dished out a team-high 65 assists on the season, which translates to 3.4 per contest, good for seventh in the league, trailing Wagner's own JoJo Cooper (3.53 apg). As a whole, the Red Flash are averaging 75.5 ppg while giving up 75.1 points a contest and are shooting a league-best 45.7 percent from the field and 38.1 percent from beyond-the-arc while converting on 70.8 percent from the free-throw line.   

Carey Seeing 20/20: Michael Carey was the sixth player in NEC history with at least 22 boards in a game and one of seven NEC players in the last 20 years to finish with 20 points and 20 rebounds in a contest when he went for 21 points and 22 rebounds against defending league champions, Fairleigh Dickinson, back on January 5. 
 

Block Party: Against Bryant (1/12/17), redshirt sophomore forward AJ Sumbry (East Windsor, NJ/St. Benedict's Prep [Quinnipiac]) swatted away a game-high five shots, three of which coming in the second half of action. The five rejections are the most in a single-game since fellow teammate Mike Aaman (Hazlet, NJ/Raritan [University of Rhode Island]) denied five shots against Robert Morris in the 2016 Northeast Conference (NEC) quarterfinals (3/2/16). Thursday's contest will feature the No. 1 and No. 2 shotblockers in the conference as Sumbry ranks second in the conference, behind SFU's Josh Nebo, who paces the league at 2.11 blocks a game. Sumbry is denying 1.28 shots a contest and has 23 rejections on the season. 

Simply Mr. Double-Double: Versatile 6-5 guard Michael Carey has notched 21 career double-doubles, the most recent coming in Wagner's 67-62 road victory over Sacred Heart (1/21/17) in which the 6-5 guard scored 22 points and grabbed ten rebounds. Since the 1997-98 season, Carey is just the sixth Seahawk to record double-digit double-doubles and only the fourth player in the program during this time to record 20 or more double-doubles for a career.