Men's Basketball at No. 17 WPI
Saturday, December 9 | 2 p.m.
Harrington Auditorium | Worcester, Mass. 

SERIES HISTORY
•    Babson is 51-38 all-time against WPI in a series that dates back to the 1974-75 campaign. 
•    The Beavers snapped a six-game losing streak to the Engineers in last year's NEWMAC Tournament final and picked up their first win in Harrington Auditorium since 2020. 
•    The teams met twice in Worcester in last February and split the matchups, which were decided by a total of just seven points. 

LAST MEETING
•    Junior Nate Amado scored a game-high 17 points and Aaron Gao '23 contributed 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists to help Babson upset WPI, 59-53, in the NEWMAC Tournament final on February 25, 2023, in Worcester. 
•    Andrew Kirkpatrick '23 added 11 points and sophomore Timmy O'Toole led all players with 11 rebounds for the Beavers, who led by as many as 12 in the first half and went in front for good with just under 11 minutes to play. 
•    Junior Aidan Callahan scored 13 points, senior John Adams contributed 12 points, nine boards and three steals, and classmate Donovan Sevilla chipped in with 11 points for the Engineers. 

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
•    Babson (5-3, 1-0 NEWMAC) has won four of its last five games and is coming off a 93-73 rout of Emerson in its conference opener on Wednesday night. 
•    Graduate student Steph Baxter scored 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting, O'Toole added a career-high 18 points and Amado and junior Aidan Horan both scored 10 points for the Beavers, who shot 51.3 percent. 
•    Amado (21.0 pts, 6.1 reb, 2.9 ast) has scored in double figures in 11 consecutive games, Baxter (20.9 pts, 3.6 ast, 3.6 reb) is shooting 52 percent from the floor and O'Toole (8.4 pts, 8.8 reb, 2.3 stl) is shooting 51.9 percent and leads the team in both rebounds and steals. 
•    The Green and White is averaging 79.1 points and is making 10.1 three-pointers per outing over its first eight games. 

SCOUTING THE ENGINEERS
•    No. 17 WPI (7-1, 1-0 NEWMAC) bounced back from its only loss of the year with a 64-50 win at Salve Regina in its league opener on Wednesday night. 
•    Justin Molen came off the bench to score a game-high 14 points, while Callahan, Sevilla and JT Veiking each added seven points to pace the Engineers, who led 33-20 at halftime and scored 25 points off of 24 turnovers by the Seahawks. 
•    Adams (13.1 pts, 11.4 reb) has three double-doubles and is shooting 54.9 percent, Callahan (13.1 pts, 3.9 ast, 2.8 reb, 2.0 stl) leads the team in assists and steals, and Sevilla (11.3 pts, 2.6 reb) has scored in double figures five times in the first eight games. 
•    WPI is averaging 73.6 points and has held its first eight foes to just 39.4 percent shooting from the floor and 21.3 from beyond the arc. 

POLL POSITION
•    Coming off its first NEWMAC Tournament championship since 2016 last winter, Babson garnered three first-place votes and finished second when the league announced its preseason coaches' poll back in October. 
•    The Beavers came in behind only WPI, which has claimed two straight NEWMAC regular season titles, and earned a league-best five first-place votes in the poll. 

NEW-LOOK NEWMAC
•    After playing 14 league games over the last decade, the NEWMAC has expanded to nine teams with the addition of Salve Regina and will feature a 16-game schedule beginning this winter. 
•    With the addition of the Seahawks, who were previously part of the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC), the conference tournament will also expand from five to six teams. 

FIRING FROM DEEP
•    The Beavers rank 20th in three-pointers per game (10.1) and 27th in three-point field goal attempts per game (29.0) entering Saturday's contest. 
•    Babson is outscoring its opponents by 13.9 points per game from beyond the arc and have attempted more triples than its foes in seven of the first eight contests. 
•    The Green and White is 4-0 to start the year when shooting at least 36 percent from three-point range. 

CONFERENCE SUCCESS
•    Since finishing fifth back in 2013, the Beavers boast an .802 winning percentage (101-25) in the regular season against league foes in nine seasons going back to 2014. 
•    Babson owns three regular season titles (2015, 2016, 2017) in addition to finishing second three times and third on three occasions during this stretch, and has won at least 10 games eight times. 

DYNAMIC DUO
•    Amado (37th) and Baxter (42nd) both rank among the top 50 in Division III in scoring and enter the weekend as the country's third-ranked scoring duo. 
•    They have combined to average 41.9 points per game, which is behind only Kai Te Huki (23.7) and Gabe Garcia (22.2) of Grinnell and Derian Bradford (23.8) and Aytor Alberto (20.1) of Cairn.

NUMBERS TO KNOW
•    The Beavers ranked 16th in Division III in adjusted offensive efficiency averaging 114.0 points per 100 possessions according to D3datacast.com and own an adjusted efficiency margin of 22.4 that ranks second among NEWMAC schools behind only WPI (+24.8). 
•    Babson has scored at least 70 points in seven of its first eight outings but has been held to 64 or less in seven consecutive games against the Engineers. 
•    The Green and White has won seven of its last eight NEWMAC road games with the lone loss coming by a point at WPI last February. 
•    The Beavers are 5-0 this season when outrebounding their opponents. 

NEXT UP
•    Babson travels to Oshkosh, Wis., for the Winter Classic where it will face Wisconsin-Stout on December 29 and 24th-ranked Wisconsin-Oshkosh on December 30 inside Oshkosh Arena.