UAlbany And Fairfield Meet For the First Time In Saturday's BracketBuster

1. BracketBuster Weekend The 11th annual Ramada Worldwide Bracket Buster, a two-day men's college basketball event pitting potential NCAA Championship hopefuls against each other will take place this weekend, Feb. 22-23. The University at Albany is one of two teams selected from the America East Conference to participate. In total, 122 teams from 15 conferences will compete. The Great Danes travel to play Fairfield on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 1:00 p.m. in Bridgeport, Conn.

2. UAlbany BracketBuster History This is the fifth time the Great Danes have been featured in the BracketBuster. They are 1-3 all-time. The four previous opponents that head coach Will Brown and the men's basketball squad have faced were Virginia Commonwealth on Feb. 17, 2006 (L, 70-67), Boise State on Feb. 16, 2007 (L, 83-82), Canisius (L, 64-60) and Rider on Feb. 18, 2012 (W, 70-61).

3. A Strong Sophomore Campaign for Great Dane Aussie Sophomore forward Sam Rowley scored 18 points and recorded eight boards in the Great Danes loss to Boston U. last Wednesday. The Australian forward continues to lead UAlbany in rebounds, 6.5 per game. He also has a team leading 34 steals and is third in blocks with 11. He has four double-double's this season.

4. Black's Back After going through a scoring drought - senior Mike Black has again found himself atop the box scores. Over the last three game's the starting guard has scored a combined 51 points, including 21 in the team's loss against the Terriers. If Black continues at his current pace (15.1 ppg), he will finish his career with the sixth most points in program history.

5. Connecting Behind the Arc UAlbany has connected from behind the arc all season. They currently sit second in conference in 3-point percentage, (.362), only trailing Boston U. (.384). The Great Danes are led in three-point land by graduate guard Jacob Iati. He currently sits second in the conference with 77 made-three's, shooting 41.6 percent (77-185). The fifth-year guard trails only E.J. Gallup, 93, and Matthew Haggarty, 94, in terms of the DI single-season program record record.