Men's Basketball Looks For Sixth AMCC Title; Will Play La Roche in Semifinals on Saturday

ERIE, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend men's basketball team will travel to Buffalo, NY for the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) playoffs, hosted by Medaille this Saturday and Sunday.

The Lions (19-6, 14-4 AMCC) have secured the No. 2 seed for the second consecutive year and will play No. 3 La Roche (19-7, 14-4 AMCC) Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. No. 1 Medaille (19-6, 16-2 AMCC) will host No. 4 Penn State Altoona (14-12, 12-6 AMCC) prior to Behrend's matchup Saturday. The winner of the two semifinal matchups will play for the championship on Sunday at 1 p.m.

The Redhawks defeated No. 6 Pitt-Bradford (12-13, 10-8 AMCC) on Wednesday, 77-72, to advance to the semifinal matchup against the Lions, while the Altoona took down No. 5 Hilbert (15-11, 11-7 AMCC) 80-79, to advance to Saturday's game against the Mavericks.

Behrend has five players averaging double-digits this season. Andy Niland (Fairview, PA/Fairview) leads the Lions with 13.2 points and 4.4 assists per game. He leads the AMCC in minutes per game, averaging 33.2 minutes on the floor. Niland also holds the best free-throw percentage in the conference and 14th-best in the nation (90.3).

Senior Malquan Pullium (Erie, PA/Strong Vincent) sits just behind Niland in points per game with 13.1. He's pulled down a team-leading 49 offensive rebounds while averaging 5.8 total rebounds. Dan Wanker (Pittsburgh, PA/South Park) has a team-high and conference fifth-best field goal percentage (53.5). The sophomore guard is also leading Behrend in rebounding, grabbing 6.2 boards per game.

As a team, the Lions are the 14th-ranked scoring defense in Division III, allowing only 64.3 points per game. They rank eighth in the country, committing just 14.6 personal fouls per game.

Behrend is look to capture their sixth Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference title.