The Benedictine University men's basketball team returns to the floor tonight for the first time since January 14 with a trip to Concordia Chicago to open a weekend two-game battle of conference games. The contests mark the beginning of the modified conference schedule.

HOW TO FOLLOW
The game will feature LIVE VIDEO and LIVE STATS from Concordia Chicago. Concordia Chicago will allow spectators, but the number is limited to 50 and only faculty, staff and students from Concordia Chicago. This space will provide spectator details for all facilities weekly.

LAST TIME OUT
Benedictine dropped a nail-biter in their lone contest of the season to this point, a 73-72 overtime loss at home to Trine University. Trine is now 6-0 and will garner consideration in the first D3hoops.com poll which will be released soon (NOTE: D3hoops.com will run a poll this year but it will start as a Top-15 due to the number of teams who have opted out). Freshman Trevor Montiel led Benedictine with 16 points and 11 rebounds in his college debut.

Concordia Chicago opened on Monday with a loss to DePauw by an 83-47 score.

CONFERENCE SLATE
To comply with NCAA Covid testing requirements the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference has split the conference into north and south divisions. Teams will play on Fridays and Saturdays against opponents from in-division at the same site. For example, Benedictine plays at Concordia Chicago Friday and Saturday night. The NCAA has not currently announced plans for the tournament this year, but the conference will have a tournament at the end of the season to determine the automatic qualifier in the event that the NCAA hosts a tournament.

2-0
Freshman Trevor Montiel wears the #20. Montiel is from Roselle and attended Lake Park. Kenny Bogus was the last player to wear #20. Bogus is also from Roselle and attended Lake Park. Bogus was part of a pair of conference championship teams that reached the NCAA Tournament and finished as a 1,000-point scorer and the program's all-time leader in blocks.

15
Fifteen players saw the floor in the season opening loss, all 15 took to the floor in the first half.

ADDITIONS
Benedictine was supposed to have played three games at this point in the year but one game was canceled due to Covid protocols and another due to weather. The team has added three additional non-conference contests including a home-and-home with Lake Forest. Benedictine will welcome Wabash on February 17 while traveling to Lake Forest on February 20 with a home game on February 23.

WELCOME BACK
Benedictine welcomes back three starters from last season's NCAA Tournament team and 13 players who saw time last season. Nick Kosich was named as the NACC Freshman of the Year last season and joins Keegan and Kyle Graebner as returning starters. Michael Johnson has come back to Benedictine following a year at Robert Morris. Johnson may have been the conference's freshman of the year in 2018-19 but was ineligible for the award due to Benedictine's provisional NCAA Division II exploration. Johnson averaged 9.7 points per game that season while leading the team in steals and finishing second in assists.

FAMILIAR FACE
Concordia Chicago head coach Steve Kollar was an assistant under Keith Bunkenburg at Benedictine from 2013-15. Kollar is one of four active former assistants under Bunkenburg that are currently head coaches (Joe Fano - St. Mary's; Steve Schaefer - Augustana; Kaniela Aiona - Hawaii-Hilo).

LAST SEASON
Benedictine and Concordia Chicago split last year's meetings with both teams winning at home. Concordia Chicago won 90-72 and Benedictine claimed a 66-63 win.

REWIND
Benedictine won 20 games in 2019-20, boasting a 20-7 record. The team shared the NACC regular season championship and received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament before falling to Susquehanna in a game at Wittenberg.

UP NEXT
After playing on Friday and Saturday at Concordia Chicago (7pm/5pm), Benedictine will host Dominican next weekend on Friday and Saturday at 7pm and 5pm.

HEAR FROM THE COACH