Nichols College Men's Basketball Advances to Sweet Sixteen in NCAA Tournament

The team is on a historical winning streak

Dudley, MA (03/08/2023) — The Nichols College Men's Basketball advanced to the "Sweet 16" round of the national NCAA Division III Tournament on Saturday night after defeating Middlebury College (VT).

For the Sweet Sixteen game, Nichols will face Stockton University on Friday, March 10, at Tarble Pavillion on the campus of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA. Tip-off is set for 4:15 p.m. The winner will move on to the Elite 8.

To make it to this point, the Bison have sustained a program-best 19-game winning streak, winning their conference (Commonwealth Coast Conference) and beating nationally recognized colleges University of Rochester (NY) and Middlebury thus far in the NCAA Tournament. Nichols entered both contests as underdogs, with Rochester and Middlebury considered heavy favorites. Yet the Bison came out on top, overcoming a 20-point deficit to beat Rochester on March 3 and holding off Middlebury by 7 points on March 4.

Sure to play a role in the game is a Nichols star player Matthew Alectus, who is one of the top 10 players in the nation in rebounding and named Defensive Player of the Year in his conference (CCC).

The Bison will practice this Wednesday at Dudley from 2:30-4 p.m. and the team's celebratory sendoff to the Sweet 16 is taking place on Thursday at noon at Nichols, where they are sure to meet cheers of "Go Books, Go Bison," a motto on campus.

This will be Nichols' first Sweet Sixteen since the 2018-19 campaign. The Bison made it to the Elite 8 during that campaign, where they lost to Swarthmore College, which sets up the possibility for Nichols to compete in an Elite 8 redemption match against Swarthmore, since Swarthmore has now also advanced to the Sweet 16 and will have home field advantage should they move on to the Elite 8.

Nichols Men's Basketball Head Coach, Brock Erickson, is 50-9 W-L through two years so far, and the fastest coach ever to reach 50 wins at Nichols. This is the sixth year in a row that the team has qualified for the NCAA D3 Tournament.

Footage of the Nichols v Middlebury game on March 4 can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28R1YfFdY6Q and downloadable via YouTube downloader.

Attached Photos Credit: Will Costello

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