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GAMBIER, Ohio – After a quick, one-year hiatus from North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Tournament action, the Kenyon College men's basketball team is making a return with Tuesday night's first-round game at Hiram College. It will be the Lords' 12th postseason appearance in the last 13 years.

Kenyon will travel to Hiram with an 11-14 record and the conference tournament's No. 6 seed. The Lords will face a Hiram team that owns an 18-7 record is in the No. 3 seed in the eight-team tournament. The game marks the first time that Kenyon and Hiram will square off in the NCAC Tournament.

During the regular season, Hiram handled the Lords both at home and away. On December 5 in Tomsich Arena, the Terriers forced 22 Kenyon turnovers and senior guard J.J. Woodson scored a game-high 25 points to guide Hiram to an 88-78 win. At Hiram, on January 23, the Terriers jumped out to an early 20-point lead, got to halftime with a 52-25 cushion and coasted home for a 92-74 win.

Since joining the NCAC in the 1999-2000 season, Hiram has a 14-20 record against Kenyon. In the last ten meetings, Hiram is 6-4 against the Lords.

Kenyon's offense leans heavily on the output of senior guard Tim Connolly, the conference's leading scorer at 19.6 points per game. He's coming off a career-best 33-point game against Wabash in which he also eclipsed the 1,000-point career milestone.

Kenyon also gets key contributions from senior center Brien Comey, who leads the conference in blocked shots (48), while averaging 12.7 points and a team-best 6.4 rebounds per game. Additional scoring comes from guards Matt Shifrin (7.6 ppg) and Alexander Powell (7.5 ppg).

As a team, Kenyon averages 73.7 points per game, but allows a conference-worst average of 76.8 points per game. On the other side of the court, the Hiram offense averages 76.1 points per game, while the defense yields the same exact number.

Woodson leads the Terriers' offense with a scoring mark of 16.1 points per game, while sophomores Paul Ortiz and Kelvin Jones toss in 13.5 and 9.5 points per game, respectively. Jones is also among the NCAC's best rebounders, boasting an average of 9.3 boards per contest. Additionally, Woodson is tops in the conference with an average of 2.3 steals per game for a Hiram team that leads the NCAC with an average 10.3 steals per game.

The first-round game is set to tip-off at 7:30 p.m. in Hiram's Price Gymnasium. As mandated by the conference office, ticket prices for the postseason game will be $7 for adults, $5 for fans with an NCAC Guest Pass and $5 for children and students without an NCAC institution ID. Students who present a valid NCAC institution ID at the gate will be admitted free of charge.