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FAIRFIELD, Conn. -- The Fairfield University men's basketball team will meet up with Quinnipiac University on Saturday afternoon but the game will take place outside of the Nutmeg State. Rather, the two teams will clash at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (Uniondale, N.Y.) as part of a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) tripleheader. The Stags and the Bobcats start the day with a 1 pm game which will be followed with Marist and Monmouth at 4 pm before closing with Iona and Manhattan at 7 pm. 

Fairfield will play its third neutral site game of the season when it takes the floor against Quinnipiac. The Stags played Jacksonville University (L, 92-84) and Gardener-Webb (W, 75-64) at the Nutter Center as part of the Wright State Tournament earlier in November. The program comes off a 90-88 loss to Rider University on Tuesday night, despite getting a 24-point, 11-rebound effort from Tyler Nelson. Fairfield held a six-point lead with under four minutes remaining but Rider closed out the game with eight straight points to pull off the two-point victory. The game featured 12 lead changes and 11 tied scores.

Nelson's 24 points marked the third straight game in which he posted 20 or more points, tying the longest such streak of his career. During his current run, he has scored 87 points (29.0 ppg). He also reached the 20-point mark three straight times as a junior (21.3 ppg) and as a sophomore (21.7 ppg). For the season, Nelson leads the team with a 21.2 scoring average followed by Ferron Flavors Jr. with 11.4 points per contest. Despite playing just six games, Aidas Kavaliauskas is third on the team with 35 assists, trailing only Nelson (62 assists) and Jerome Segura (47).

The Bobcats won their second straight conference game with their 85-77 decision at Marist on Thursday night. Quinnipiac stands a 2-2 in MAAC road games this year, also winning at Siena earlier in the year. Rich Kelly led all Quinnipiac scorers with 20 points against the Red Foxes, also dishing off six assists in 38 minutes of work. Starters Cameron Young (18 pts) and Jacob Rigoni (14) joined reserve Chaise Daniels (10) as the team's other double-figure scorers. The Bobcats trailed by six at halftime but shot 50 percent both overall and from three-point range in the second half to score 52 points, outscoring their host by 14 points over the final 20 minutes.

The 85-point effort represented a team-best in MAAC play this year and the second time the program reach the 80-point mark in a conference game. The  other performance came against Marist but it took overtime to post the points, an 80-79 win in Hamden. Young leads the team in scoring overall (17.6 ppg) and in MAAC play (19.8 ppg). He is also the top rebounder with 6.2 per game overall and 6.7 per contest in MAAC action. Daniels is next in line despite spending most of the season as reserve, netting 12.3 points per game. 

This date marks the second time in this series that Fairfield and Quinnipiac play on a neutral floor. The first match up came at Mohegan Sun Arena as part of the Connecticut 6 Classic, a tripleheader that included six of the state's Division I basketball programs which was played annually. The Stags posted a 72-60 win that day, the first-ever men's basketball meeting between these two schools. Four Fairfield starters reached double figures in the game with Maurice Barrow's 19 points pacing the Stags' offense.

Last season, Fairfield posted an 89-86 win on the road as two Stags posted a double-double. Tyler Nelson registered 24 points and 12 assists, while Amadou Sidibe added 16 points and 12 rebounds. In the first meeting of the season, Quinnipiac used a 15-2 run over the final six minutes to edge Fairfield, 73-71.  Nelson scored a team-best 29 points for the Stags.