DUDLEY, Mass. – The Nichols College men's basketball team climbed four spots to No. 6 in this week's D3hoops.com Top 25.

The Bison – who began the season at No. 10 in the preseason rankings – have opened the season 4-0 for the fourth-consecutive season. First-year head coach Brandon Linton guided them to wins against Eastern Connecticut State and New England College at the WPI Tournament on November 15-16 before securing victories over Anna Maria and Worcester State last week.
Senior preseason All-America pick DeAnte Bruton earned Tournament MVP at the WPI Tournament honors after averaging 25.0 ppg and 5.5 rebounds against the Warriors and Pilgrims. He is averaging 24.5 ppg this season and has moved into fifth-place on the all-time scoring list at NC.

Junior Matt Morrow – also a Preseason All-America pick – is shooting 50 percent from the field and averaging 12.3 ppg and 9.3 rpg. The emergence of sophomore Jason O'Regan has also sparked Nichols as he poured in 25 points in his first collegiate start against NEC and netted 18 against the Lancers this past Saturday. Sophomore Jaekwon Spencer has hit double-figures in all four games thus far in 2019 while junior Nate Tenaglia is averaging more than five assists and two steals per game.

Two schools the Bison eliminated from the NCAA Tournament last spring – Amherst and Middlebury – came in at No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, in this week's poll. Other New England-based institutions in the poll include WPI (No. 25), Springfield (RV), Babson (RV), Tufts (RV), Colby (RV), and Williams (RV).

Nichols returns to action on Sunday when they head to Connecticut to face Trinity (CT) at 2:00 p.m.