On Senior Day at Lender Court the Quinnipiac men’s basketball team (17-8, 12-4 MAAC) defeated the Saint Peter’s Peacocks (9-16, 5-11 MAAC) by a final score of 74-64. Seniors Ike Azotam, Shaq Shannon, and Umar Shannon were honored before the game.
The team got off to their second slow start in the last three games as Saint Peter’s opened up the first half with an early 12-1 lead.
“I don’t know if it is just general fatigue or fatigue because we are playing with less people but we did look a little stuck in the cement defensively to start the game,” head coach Tom Moore said, regarding his team’s second slow start in the last three games.
Junior forward Ousmane Drame led all scorers tying a career high with 23 points to go along with 12 rebounds. Junior guard Zaid Hearst notched the 20-point mark for the third time in of the team’s five games in February, tallying 20 points.
“I just made a few tough shots,” Drame said. “They played tough defense. I was just in a good rhythm.”
Senior Ike Azotam got his 41st career double-double, scoring 16 points with 11 rebounds. This tied Azotam for the school record for double-doubles in a career. This game was Azotam’s second to last home game in a Bobcat uniform.
“[Azotam] is a great player, obviously. One of the best to come to Quinnipiac,” Drame said. “It’s going to be sad next year not having him, but at the same time I think I am good enough to be the face of the team.”
One area of the game that the Bobcats need to work on is their press offense, as they struggled against the Peacocks’ press defense during the game. Without a true point guard in the lineup, both Umar Shannon and Kasim Chandler sat out with injuries, the Peacocks were able to get back in the game. The Peacocks pulled within nine points with just less than three minutes to go. This was as close as Saint Peter’s would get as Hearst, Drame, and Azotam were clutch down the stretch.
“Our press offense today in those last seven minutes was terrible and that falls on me,” Moore said. “But I guarantee if Umar and Kasim were out there we wouldn’t look this terrible because those guys were brought in to really handle our press break.”
After the win on Sunday, Quinnipiac is now in a three-way tie with Manhattan and Canisius for second place in the conference. Coach Moore and his team will look to keep pace in the conference over the final four games of the season.
“I’d like us to keep winning a respectable amount of games and get healthy,” Moore said.
The team’s next game is on Thursday Feb. 20, as the Bobcats travel to New York to take on the Canisius Golden Griffins. The Bobcats look to improve to one and one on the year against the Golden Griffins, who defeated the Bobcats 86-74 the last time these two teams met.
