In its final road trip of the 2025-26 regular season, the Binghamton men’s basketball team kept its post-season hopes alive with a 79-67 victory over Bryant before falling to UMass Lowell 92-79 on Saturday.

“I thought it was a team performance,” said Binghamton head coach Levell Sanders. “I think everybody who played contributed. We had some big-time performances and just big plays from a bunch of different guys.”

In Thursday night’s matchup, Bryant (8-19, 4-9 AE) struck first, but Binghamton (6-23, 2-12 AE) responded with a 9-2 run, culminating in three successful free throws by graduate student guard Jackson Benigni. The following minutes were back-and-forth, with both squads grabbing leads and the match tying twice at 17-17 and 19-19.

The Bearcats then took a lead they did not relinquish for the remainder of the half when junior guard Jeremiah Quigley found Benigni in the corner. Soon after, a three-pointer by freshman guard Jake Blackburn was followed by a pair of free throws by junior guard Bryson Wilson, giving Binghamton a six-point lead. Although the Bulldogs responded with a three-pointer in their final possession of the period, Benigni kept the Bearcats’ lead at six with another three.

“I don’t think it was anything in particular,” Sanders said. “I thought we had some really good practices. Tuesday’s practice was really good, Wednesday was good and we’ve been getting a ton of shots up and shots just went down.”

Although Bryant opened the second half with consecutive scores, senior guard Wes Peterson Jr. capped off a 7-0 retaliatory run with a make from beyond-the-arc. The Bearcats continued to tally points, with another three from Benigni making the score 50-40.

Looking to put the game out of reach, junior forward Zyier Beverly closed out a 6-0 Binghamton run with an alley-oop dunk, bringing the lead to 60-46. After a Bulldog three-pointer cut their deficit to nine, the Bearcats led by at least 11 through the rest of play, comfortably claiming a 79-67 victory and completing their season sweep over Bryant.

“Fortunately for us, we were able to weather the storm in terms of them not converting on the opportunities,” Sanders said. “But we’ve got to do a better job. It’s going to be one of the things that UMass Lowell is going to do — we’re going to have to do a much better job with defensive rebounding.”

On Saturday, the Bearcats travelled to Lowell to take on the River Hawks (13-15, 8-5 AE), where they quickly established a 13-10 advantage following a pair of jumpers from Quigley.

“When a team scores over 90 it’s hard to win,” Sanders told binghamtonbearcats.com. “We couldn’t get stops when we needed to. Offensively we were fine, other than missed free throws. But they are big and strong and play a physical brand of basketball. They put a lot of pressure on defenses and it was tough to slow them down.”

Exiting the first media timeout, a layup from Peterson put the Bearcats back on top, but the River Hawks responded to every Bearcat bucket and soon established a 12-point lead. After a three-pointer by Peterson brought the Bearcats within a point, UMass Lowell closed out the half with a 9-2 run, taking a 43-35 lead.

Early in the second half, the Bearcats got back within three points following a pair of layups from Beverly and one from Quigley. The River Hawks answered once more, growing their lead to double digits before the second media timeout.

UMass Lowell’s offense continued where it left off, finding answers for every Bearcat score. The River Hawks prevented Binghamton from cutting its deficit below eight points for the remainder of the match as the Bearcats fell 92-79.

“We still have something to play for and we have to be ready to go on Thursday,” Sanders told binghamtonbearcats.com. “We are playing to get into the tournament.”

Binghamton will kick off its final week of regular-season play when it hosts UNH on Thursday, Feb. 26. Tipoff is set for 6:07 p.m. at the Dr. Bai Lee Court in Vestal, New York.