Wagner (10-9, 2-4 NEC) at Saint Francis University (8-13, 3-4 NEC)
Date | Time	Sunday, January 26, 2025 | 2 p.m.
Location	Loretto, Pa. | DeGol Arena
Television	NEC Front Row Pat Farabaugh, play-by-play; Bernie Jubeck, color analyst)
Live Stats	Sidearm
Printable Notes	Saint Francis | LIU
Stats	Saint Francis | Wagner | Northeast Conference
Social Media	@RedFlashMBB  | #BELIEVE | @RedFlashMBB | Facebook

 

Saint Francis Probable Starters
Pos.	No.	Name	Ht.	Wt.	Yr.	PPG	RPG	FG%	Note
G	5	Daemar Kelly	6-5	195	So.	6.4	2.9	38.2	Posted a career-high 11 points, 8 rebounds vs. LIU
G	7	Jeremy Clayville	6-0	160	Fr.	8.5	1.8	39.4	Leads the team with 42 triples
G	11	Riley Parker	6-2	195	Jr.	12.6	3.3	49.0	Career-high 29 points vs. LIU
G	14	Bobby Rosenberger III	6-5	205	So.	11.0	4.6	42.5	Needs one point for 500
F	31	Valentino Pinedo	6-8	230	Jr.	9.6	6.9	55.1	Averaging 12.0 ppg and 10.0 rpg in last two tilts
Top Players Off the Bench
Pos.	No.	Name	Ht.	Wt.	Yr.	PPG	RPG	FG%	Note
G	0	Chris Moncrief	6-6	190	Jr.	4.1	2.2	45.6	NEC career-high 13 points in last meeting with Wagner
G	2	Ace Talbert	6-0	185	So.	10.2	2.8	35.4	Averaging 12.8 ppg in last four games played
F	3	Miles Webb	6-8	190	Jr.	4.9	3.4	59.7	One of two players with a double-double at home this year
G	4	Juan Cranford, Jr.	6-3	205	Fr.	9.7	3.6	50.0	Scored 10+ points 10 times
G	15	Victor Payne	6-4	190	Fr.	2.1	1.3	39.4	Sealed FDU win with three free throws
F	21	Gestin Liberis	6-9	225	Jr.	---	---	---	Averaged 11.0 ppg and 7.7 rpg in last four games played
G	23	Wisler Sanon II	6-4	190	Jr.	0.0	1.0	0.0	Made 2024-25 debut on Friday vs. LIU
F	32	Aidan Harris	6-7	205	So.	2.1	2.1	53.3	16 rebounds in last five tilts

SELECT GAME NOTES VS. WAGNER (FULL GAME NOTES PDF)

FRANKIES TIDBITS IN A FLASH
• Sunday's game between Saint Francis and Wagner marks the 85th meeting in the all-time series, dating back to the 1956-57 season. Despite the Seahawks holding a 45-39 advantage in the matchup, the Red Flash is 24-15 against Wagner at home. However, the Seahawks have won the last four meetings in the series and the last three in Loretto.
• Not often does a movie sequel get better reviews than the original, but on Sunday, Red Flash fans hope the game is more like Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and less like Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Saint Francis and Wagner have played some great battles over the years, and Red Flash fans will remember Keith Braxton's game-winner in the 2017 NEC Tournament. The two teams have played five overtime games since 1981-82: 1981-82, 2007-08, 2016-17, 2023-24 and 2024-25. The last two games have gone to overtime, with the Seahawks taking a 65-63 decision on February 15, 2024, and just five days ago, Wagner downed the Red Flash 70-68 in double overtime. It is the second time in program history that Saint Francis has played consecutive games in overtime after playing OT twice against Robert Morris in 1983-84. An overtime tilt on Sunday would also be the second time the Frankies have played two overtime games against the same team in the same season.
• "Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away."- Alex Hitchens in Hitch. With the 74-64 win against LIU on Friday, head coach Rob Krimmel earned his 100th win in Cambria County. With his next win, he will earn his 100th win at DeGol Arena to become the first basketball head coach to reach that mark and join Red Flash men's volleyball head coach Mike Rumbaugh to reach that total in school history. Krimmel has 100 home wins, but the Red Flash defeated Navy, 60-57, at the War Memorial in Johnstown on November 11, 2013. Krimmel will be looking to reach the milestone on his first try to join his first Northeast Conference win (January 3, 2013) and 50th win against Bryant (January 19, 2017) as the only milestone to reach on his first attempt. He won his 150th game on his second try, his 100th game on his third try, and his 100th NEC win on his fourth try.
• This season, visiting teams "do not want to go to war with the Red Flash." Like Bruce Dickinson, Saint Francis men's basketball "has a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell." The Frankies are 6-3 at home this season, but they are 5-1 when the Red Flash Pep Band plays to give Saint Francis one of the best home-court advantages in the NEC. The only loss with the band in attendance was against Radford on December 1, while they could have been working on adding more cowbell for their Blue Oyster Cult version of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" for the win against Franciscan on December 20 and the two NEC losses against CCSU (January 3) and Stonehill (January 5), but in reality were home for Christmas break.
• Saint Francis men's basketball does not treat team manager Matthew Hall like Sam Baker in Sixteen Candles because they remember his birthday with wins.  The Red Flash is 3-0 at DeGol Arena in the closest home game to his birthday without going over. The Red Flash defeated St. Francis Brooklyn 87-61 on January 20, 2023, Sacred Heart 75-71 on January 25, 2024, and LIU 74-64 on January 23, 2025. The last two wins were against the preseason favorite (Sacred Heart) and undefeated LIU.

AN SFU WIN WOULD
• Earn a third straight win at home
• Make head coach Rob Krimmel the second coach and first basketball coach in Saint Francis history to post 100 wins at DeGol Arena (Mike Rumbaugh, men's volleyball has 184 wins in Loretto)
• End a four-game losing streak against Wagner
• End a three-game losing streak against Wagner at DeGol Arena
• Improve the Frankies home record to 7-3 and 4-3 against NCAA Division I teams
• Improve to 2-1 Fridays at home


ABOUT THE SEAHAWKS
• Wagner comes into the contest 10-9 overall and 2-4 in NEC play after falling 71-66 at Mercyhurst on Friday.
• The Seahawks registered a 164 ranking for its non-conference schedule, playing one quad one, two quad two, a quad three, and five quad four teams. Before beating CCSU 62-57 on January 10 for a quadrant three win, Wagner's best non-conference win was a 60-58 win against Boston University on November 19 with a 293 ranking.
• Zae Blake paced the Seahawks with 18 points, while Zaire Williams chipped in 13 points against the Lakers. 
• Williams leads the team with 12.9 points per game and 30 steals.  Ja'kair Sanchez is second in scoring (9.5 ppg.), and Blake (9.1 ppg.) is third. Keyontae Lewis has a team-best 5.4 rebounds per game and Javier Ezquerra has dished out a Seahawks-leading 91 assists.

LAST TIME WE MET
• A remarkable comeback attempt by Saint Francis was thwarted when Wagner scored the decisive basket with 1.9 seconds left in the second OT to down the Red Flash 70-68 on Monday.
• Junior Chris Moncrief tied the game at 68 with 10 seconds left in the second extra session and finished with 13 points, four rebounds, and three assists for his best performance in an NEC game.
• Junior Riley Parker led the Red Flash with 19 points, while junior Valentino Pinedo tallied 12 points and 11 rebounds.
• Wagner defeated Saint Francis 65-63 in overtime in the last meeting in Loretto on February 15, 2024. Eli Wilborn (16 points, eight rebounds) and Bobby Rosenberger III (16 points, seven rebounds) fueled the Frankies in the second battle in Loretto, while Melvin Council, Jr. (20 points), Tahron Allen (12 points) and Keyontae Lewis (10 points) posted double figures for the Seahawks.

LAST TIME OUT
• Behind a career-high 29 points from junior Riley Parker, Saint Francis defeated previous undefeated LIU 74-64 on Friday night. Parker's father, who Parker refers to as old boy, watched his son (young pup) play for the first time in the United States. Parker, a native of Australia, is in his third season playing basketball in the United States after playing his first two years at NJCAA's Cochise College in Arizona. The 29 points were the third most scored by an NEC player this season and the most in a league game.
• Junior Daemar Kelly added a career-high 11 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two blocks against the Sharks. He also held one of the Top-3 scorers in the NEC to four points on a 2-for-21 shooting and 0-for-6 from the field.
• Junior Valentino Pinedo (12 points, nine rebounds) narrowly missed his second straight double-double, while freshman Juan Cranford, Jr. added 11 points in the win.
• LIU came into the night as the 13th team in NEC history to start league play 6-0. The Red Flash became the fifth time to end the streak at six.


TRENDING UP
• On the surface, a fan could see that junior Riley Parker has registered double figures in points in 12 out of his last 16 games with four 20-point games, seven games with 18 points or more, and is averaging 15.3 points per game in that stretch after averaging 4.2 points per game in his first five games. However, if you want the Crocodile Dundee "that's not a knife, now that's a knife" stat, Parker has helped the Red Flash to 28.3 percent of its points this season when you add in the points off his assists (265+173=438), or that he has helped the team to 73 3-pointers (41 for Parker, 32 off assists) for 41.2 percent of the team's 3-pointers, or 30.6 percent of the team's field goals made (101 for Parker, 72 off assists). Parker registered a career-high 29 points against LIU on January 24 and had five points come off his dimes for a total of 34 points that Parker scored or aided. That is the third most points Parker has attributed this season. He had 23 points scored, and 18 points off assists against Lehigh on November 26 for 41 points, and 15 points scored and 22 points assisted for 37 points against Penn State Shenango on December 4. Saint Francis is 5-3 when Parker has more than 25 points combined through scoring and assists in a game.  
• Junior Daemar Kelly can probably give better advice on playing defense than Charles De Mar can on skiing in Better Of Dead: "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn." In the three Red Flash wins in NEC play, Kelly has held the opponent's leading scorer (each rank in the Top-3 in the NEC) to a combined 22.2 percent shooting from the floor (10-for-45) and 0-for-14 from behind the arc for a total of 26 points. Kelly is also coming off the best overall performance of his career after tallying a career-high 11 points, eight rebounds, four assists, and two blocks. The junior, who leads the team in blocks with 13, reached double figures for the second time in his career after 10 points at Penn State on November 14. He has three games with at least five rebounds and two games with four helpers. The Frankies are 3-5 when he registers a block and 3-0 when he rejects more than one block in a game.
• Junior Valentino Pinedo narrowly missed his second straight double-double after finishing with 12 points and nine rebounds against LIU on January 24. The junior has two double-doubles and three games with 10+ rebounds but has not turned the trick in consecutive games. Pinedo scored double figures in back-to-back games and seven of his last nine. He is averaging 11.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per game in that stretch.

I WOULD WALK 500 MILES, AND I WOULD WALK 500 MORE
• Sophomore Bobby Rosenberger III needs one point to reach 500 points in his career. The sophomore would become a 500 proclaimer and the first Red Flash player since Ronell Giles, Jr. reached the total in his final game in a Red Flash uniform at FDU on March 4, 2023. 
• Giles was one of three players that reached 500 points in their career at Saint Francis on that 2022-23 squad, joining Josh Cohen and Maxwell Land. 
• Rosenberger would become the first player since Myles Thompson to reach the mark in his first two seasons. Thompson posted 510 points in his first two years in Loretto. Cohen, who finished with 1,132 points in a Red Flash uniform, recorded 456 points in his first two seasons and Land, who had 870 points in his three seasons with Saint Francis, finished with 485 points in his first two seasons. 

ON THIS DATE
• Saint Francis is 8-14 on this date, including holding a 7-8 at home and 7-11 in Northeast Conference play.
• During the 1954-55 season 70 years ago, Saint Francis defeated Baldwin-Wallace 102-84 on the road. The Red Flash went 6-0 against Baldwin Wallace from 1952-73 in the only six meetings in the series. The win was the fifth straight in an eight-game streak, starting with the 82-72 victory against Duquesne on January 8, 1955.
• This will be the fourth game against Wagner on this date and the first since 2018. It is the third time the two teams will tangle on this date, but the Seahawks have won both meetings in Loretto on this date (81-56, 2013; 91-61, 2018).
• Fueled by 25 points by Isaiah Blackmon, Saint Francis defeated Wagner 72-67 on this date in 2017 in Staten Island. Josh Nebo (12 points), Georgios Angelou (12 points) and Jamal King (10 points) also registered double figures.
FUN FACT
• With Wagner coming to town, the two teams have played overtime five times in team history. If you are curious, the Frankies have played a pair of overtime games on this date, and both occurred in Loretto. The Red Flash lost to Monmouth 81-79 in overtime in 1985 and to FDU 94-92 in overtime in 2019.