UTICA, NY –   The Utica College men's basketball team will tip-off its season this Friday taking on Westfield State University in the Westfield State Tournament in Westfield, Massachusetts. Game time is set for 5:30 p.m.
 
NEW YEAR, SAME LOCATION: The Pioneers will host 12 games this season at the Harold T. Clark Athletic Center at Utica College. Seven games of the 12 will be conference games. The Pioneers will also host the Utica College Classic, which will be held December 29th at 4 p.m. Utica will face Cazenovia, SUNY Poly and Morrisville in non-conference play this season, three teams which Pioneers defeated a year prior. The other two teams include Clarkson University, which the Pioneers share a .500 record with splitting 14 games each, and SUNY Delhi, a team Utica will face for the first time this season.
 
LAST SEASON: Last year, Utica finished with an overall record of 14-11. The Pioneers narrowly missed out on an Empire 8 Conference Tournament berth as they finished fifth in the conference with an 8-8 record in league play. In the last three years, Utica has finished .500 or above in conference play.
 
NEW FACES: Utica is excited to introduce some new faces to the squad for the upcoming 2019-2020 season. Coach Coffey, and the Pioneers look forward to freshmen Shemar Franklin (Laurelton Queens, NY/Holy Cross), Brett Talbert (Deer Park, NY/Knox School) Huasly Paredes (Fort Lee, NJ/Fort Lee), Marcus Davis (Gansevoort, NY/Saratoga Springs), Dj Harter, Thomas Morreale (Whitesboro, NY/Whitesboro), Aaron Worley (Cambria Hights, NY/Holy Cross) and Justice Brantley (Catskill, NY/Catskill) displaying their dominance on the court.
 
KEY ROLES: The Pioneers had many key players that made up the 2018-2019 season. Senior Avery Coston (Kerhonkson, NY/Rondout Valley) will be a key component in this lineup. He averaged 12.2 points a game, which was enough to keep him in the top three on the team in scoring for the season. He accumulated 293 points in 692 minutes. Junior Kobe Lufkin (Argyle, NY/Argyle) led the Pioneers in three-point-shots sinking 39 of 111.
 
WELCOME BACK: Four of the five top scorers are returning to this Pioneers including freshman star Darius Hopkins (Tampa, FL/Seffner Christian) who finished third on the team in scoring averaging 9.7 points per game. Junior Justin Strielkauskas (Waterbury, CT/Holy Cross) averaged 7.8 points per game for a combined total of 196 points scored on the season.
 
DEFENSIVE POWERHOUSE: Aside from their scoring, both Coston and Strielkauskas will be ready to dominate down low this season. Conston led the Pioneers in defensive rebounds with 96 while Strielkauskas had 89. Kimedrick Murphy (Hudson, NY/Hudson) will be another threat for this Utica team as he led the team in offensive rebounds (43) and finished with 87 defensive rebounds.
 
SCOUTING WESTFIELD STATE: The Owls are coming off a 11-15 that have many returning athletes. Westfield is led by Jauch Green Jr, who averaged an impressive 22.6 points per game. He started every game for the Owls last season and led the team in almost every category. Aside from Green, Marcus Collins and Christopher Prophet are also threats, especially when scoring down low.
 
HISTORY: This is the first time in program history facing the Westfield State Owls.
 
LOOKING AHEAD: Depending on Friday's result, Utica will face either Rutgers-Newark or RPI on Saturday.