FAIRFIELD, Conn. -- It's what teams play for all season long - a chance to play for a berth to the NCAA men's basketball tournament. And on Saturday night, the Fairfield University men's basketball team will start its quest for that chance when it takes on Saint Peter's University in quarterfinal round of the 2016 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Tournament at the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y. The match up will be broadcast on ESPN3 beginning at 9:30 pm.

The Stags and the Peacocks will play for the third time this season and for the fourth straight year in the MAAC tournament. Saint Peter's swept the two games in 2015-16 in closely contested games, winning at Alumni Hall by a 77-71 and 72-68 in the regular-season finale in Jersey City. These two teams also met in the first round of the last three MAAC tournaments with Fairfield winning in 2013 and Saint Peter's coming out on top in 2014 and 2015.

Saint Peter's owns a 14-15 overall record and a 12-8 in MAAC mark. The team finished the MAAC season with a winning record for the first time since the 2010-11 campaign (11-7) and earned 12 MAAC wins for the first time it reached that many conference wins since going 12-6 in the 2003-04 season.

Portley is the team's top scorer with 14.1 points per game, followed by Trevis Wyche (12.4 ppg) and Welton (12.3 ppg). Welton is also posting 8.1 rebounds per game which places second in the Mache Peacocks remain the top defensive team in the conference, yielding 66.3 points per game. Fairfield is one of only nine teams to score 70 points against the Peacocks but still lost 77-71 at Alumni Hall. Monmouth was the only team to reach 70 points twice this season.

The Stags' loss to Saint Peter's ended Fairfield's six-game winning streak. Saint Peter's scored the first eight points of the game before Fairfield received five straight points from Tyler Nelson. The sophomore posted Fairfield's first 10 points of the game, a streak that was broken on Matija Milin's three pointer at the 9:55 mark of the first half. Fairfield eventually took the lead off a Milin layup at 17-15 and held a one-point edge with under a minute remaining. Saint Peter's carried a one-point lead into halftime after Antwon Portley's jumper with a few ticks on the clock. The Stags tied the game early in the half at 40-40 but were never able to gain the lead over the final 20 minutes.

Nelson led all scorers in the game with 25 points, while Milin posted 16 points off the bench. Nelson raised his scoring average to 16.1 points which places seventh  in the MAAC, just behind Marcus Gilbert who ranks fifth with 17.1 points per contest. Gilbert and Kasibabu are the team's top rebounders at 5.3 per game each.

The winner of Fairfield-Saint Peter's will play the winner of Friday night's game between top-seeded Monmouth University and eighth-seeded Rider University on Sunday afternoon.