MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – The Nichols College men's basketball team saw its season come to a close in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament with a 78-58 loss to RPI Friday evening at the Freeman Athletic Center.

Senior Jason O'Regan and Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Freshman of the Year Tahmeen Dupree each scored 13 points for the Bison (25-4), who close their season with the second-highest win total in program history, matching the 2015-16 and 2017-18 teams.

Nichols fell behind early before a triple from O'Regan knotted the game at seven early. Later, junior Jakigh Dottin's layup off a feed from sophomore Brandon Goris, followed by a steal of the inbounds pass and layup from Dupree, tied the game at 17.

The Bison closed the first half trailing 30-28 behind nine from O'Regan and eight from Dottin. They shot 39 percent from the field and were even in rebounds with RPI at 20. Dom Brock paced RPI with 10 points.

The Engineers (22-5) outscored the Bison 48-30 in the second half, opening up a 10-point lead (45-35) six minutes in following a pair of free throws from Masom Memmelaar. The Bison climbed to within five points (47-42) on a three-pointer from O'Regan midway through the stanza, but a 14-5 run by RPI pushed its lead to 61-47 with under five minutes remaining.

Dottin close the evening with 12 points, seven rebounds and three dimes while graduate student Matt Morrow capped his stellar career with eight points and nine rebounds, giving him 1,583 career points, which is No. 9 all-time at Nichols. The Leicester, Mass. native graduates with 128 career games played, the most in NCAA Division III history.

Nichols – which entered the contest sixth in the nation in scoring offense at 89.2 ppg – shot just 34 percent from the floor (6-of-26 three-pointers) and was outrebounded 42-38.

The Engineers knocked down 46 percent of their field goasBrock led all student-athletes with 26 pints while Memmelaar tallied 23 points.

The loss drops the Bison to 5-5 all-time in the NCAA Tournament.