WALTHAM, Mass. – Coming off its third one-possession loss in its last eight games, the Bentley University men's basketball team will begin a two-game homestand Wednesday night when the Falcons host high-scoring Adelphi University.

Tip-off at the Dana Center is slated for 7:30 pm with a free webcast available at www.bentleyfalcons.tv.

Bentley returns home at 9-7 overall and 6-5 Northeast-10, good for fourth place in the Northeast Division, after Saturday's hard-fought 87-84 loss at New Haven. The Falcons, who trailed by  ten with under a minute-and-a-half to play, made it a one-possession game five times in the final 42 seconds but could never quite catch up to the Chargers.

Adelphi, after playing both Saint Anselm and Merrimack tough on the road earlier in the month, halted a four-game slide with a 106-74 blasting of St. Michael's. It was the fourth time this season that the NE10's highest scoring team (89.8 per game) has topped the century mark. The win over the Purple Knights was the Panthers' second in ten NE10 contests and boosted the team's record for the season to 6-12.

These two clubs last met last February in the opening round of the Northeast-10 Championships with Adelphi winning at home 101-91 in a game that featured a spectacular shootout between Bentley guard Ryan Richmond (Toronto, Ont./Thomson Collegiate) and Adelphi guard Michael Coffey. The two combined for 89 points with neither one ever coming out of the game.

Richmond, now a junior, torched the nets for a Bentley-record 45 points on 20-of-32 shooting. In a game in which he also set a school record for field goals made, only one of his 20 baskets came from outside the three-point arc.

Coffey, one of four seniors for the Panthers on this year's team, finished with 44 points in a game he buried nine of 11 from three-point land.

Richmond, who also had 26 against Adelphi in the regular season meeting last year (an 88-82 Panther win in OT), has scored at least 25 in each of Bentley's first four January games this season. He's put up 25, 26, 31 and 27 in succession during a month in which he has already scored his 1,000th, hit a game-winning three with six-tenths of a second left in OT and made all 14 of his free throw attempts in the New Haven game.

The hot stretch has raised Richmond's average to 22.1, third best in the Northeast-10 and approaching the 22.5 he posted last season.

Three-pointers are likely to be flying on Wednesday with Bentley number two in the conference in accuracy from deep and Adelphi averaging 12.2 per contest, eighth best nationally in Division II. Amazingly, coach Dave Duke's Panthers fire up 52 percent of their shot attempts from deep.

Bentley sophomore guard Seth Stankiewicz (Reading, Pa./Reading HS) leads the conference in three-point accuracy (.556) after making eight of 15 in two games last week, including five at New Haven. His 8.1 scoring average is the best among the Falcons' non-starters.

Junior forward Zach Gilpin (Hampden, Maine/Hampden Academy) is another of Bentley's threats from three with his accuracy rate .431. He's second on the team in scoring at 12.8 but has come up short of his norm in four of the last five games.

Offensive rebounding has been a strength of the Falcons with both sophomore Chris Hudson (Hodgdon, Maine/Williston Northampton School) and senior Brandon Wheeler (Stamford, Conn./ Trinity Catholic HS) ranking fifth and sixth in the NE10 respectively. Hudson has collected 41 o-boards and Wheeler, fourth in the conference in rebounding overall (7.9), follows with 37.

Adelphi will come into the game with five double-figure scorers with Coffey (16.3) and senior forward Jack Laffey (15.1, 61 3-pointers) at the top of the list.

Bentley will also be at home Saturday for a 3:30 pm game against Southern Connecticut.