WALTHAM, Mass. – Basketball returns to the Dana Center this weekend when the Bentley University men's team plays back-to-back exhibition games against a pair of Canadian teams.

The Falcons will take on St. Mary's University, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Friday at 7 pm and will face St. Francis Xavier University, also from Nova Scotia, Saturday at the same time.

The team that coach Jay Lawson puts on the floor this weekend will have a number of familiar names with Jasper Grassa, Bentley's all-time leader in three-pointers (285), the only member of the rotation not back this season. He finished his four-year career with 1,370 points.

His place in the starting five will likely be taken by senior guard Keegan Hyland (South Portland, Maine/South Portland HS), who averaged 18.8 points and 6.4 rebounds while starting the final five contests last year during the absence of two-year starting guard JP Koury (Red Bank, N.J./CBA HS). Koury, a senior, averaged 8.1 points last year and has 82 steals over the last two seasons.

The remainder of the expected starting unit were constants in the lineup during last year's 18-11 season: junior forward Tyler McFarland (Rockport, Maine/Camden Hills HS), senior forward Andrew Shaw (Saco, Maine/Thornton Academy) and junior point guard Alex Furness (Wells, Maine/Wells HS).

McFarland, the first player in program history to lead the team in both scoring and rebounds both as a freshman and sophomore, owns career averages of 16.8 points and 7.7 rebounds. He earned second-team All-Northeast-10 honors last winter when he led the conference in three-point accuracy (.495) and posted the highest scoring average(18.0) by a Bentley forward in 18 years.

Furness and Shaw each averaged about 10 points a game last winter. Furness shot .517 overall and .449 from three while Shaw connected 54 times from downtown.

St. Mary's and St. Francis Xavier are both well into their preseason schedules with records of 5-2 and 2-6, respectively. The latter will have one additional game under their belt before Saturday's game as the X-Men play Bryant on Friday.

The top returning scorers for St. Mary's are six-foot-six Theon Reefer (18.8 points, 5.6 rebounds) and five-foot-nine Marquis Clayton (14.0). Clayton has been red-hot in recent games, averaging 22 points and 5.2 boards over the Huskies' last four.

St. Francis Xavier lost the top three scorers from last year's 11-9 team but returns six-foot-seven Kevin Bercy (11.9 ppg, 7.5 rpg).

Bentley's regular season will get underway Nov. 14-15 with the Falcons facing Philadelphia (preseason number eight) and Holy Family during the Falcons' annual tip-off tournament.