It has been a strange season for the Bobcats to say the least. Two years ago they found themselves a shot or two away from an MAAC Championship, and a ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Another regular season championship and disappointing playoff run later, and the once-powerhouse Bobcats now find themselves at…fifth in the conference?
After a recent 5-5 stretch that was truly a roller coaster of big-time conference wins and tough losses to rivals, Quinnipiac had the chance to right the ship on Thursday night against the Canisius Golden Griffins. The Golden Griffins have struggled to start the season and entered the game riding an eight-game losing streak and a 0-3 record in their last few games against the Bobcats. Quinnipiac, however, would be the ones with a “get right” game tonight, dominating the Golden Griffins en route to a 75-60 win for their ninth in the MAAC this season.
The Bobcats got out to an early hot start from deep, knocking down their first three-point attempts. That success continued throughout the rest of the first half as Quinnipiac was shooting as high as 72% towards the end of the first half. However, the Bobcats missed their next three attempts from beyond the arc, forcing some shots in the final minutes.
“You just can’t fall in love with it,” said Quinnipiac head coach Tom Pecora speaking to the Bobcats’ struggles from beyond the arc in the second half.
The first half was tightly contested through the first few minutes with six total lead changes and Canisius hanging around the Bobcats and shooting well from the field. However, Quinnipiac was simply hitting more shots; they were getting to the ball first off the glass and they were getting those extra stops on defense.
The second half was a change of pace from the first. The scoring seemed to slow on both sides, and Quinnipiac shot a meager 1-4 from beyond the arc to kick off the half. A few video replays and a technical foul called against Bobcat sophomore forward, Spence Wewe, stretched the first five minutes of the half to over 20 minutes in real time. Both sides brought the intensity of defense coming out of the prolonged break, stifling the other side at every attempt into the lane. However, neither side could get anything going on offense resulting in an over two-minute scoring drought between both teams.
The early scoring drought came to an end at the hands of Quinnipiac graduate guard, Amari Monroe. Monroe faked a shot from the far wing in front of the Bobcats’ bench, got to the rim and laid it in for the first points from either side out of the timeouts. At this point Quinnipiac had built their lead up to nearly 15 points, a margin they hovered around for the remainder of the game.
The Bobcats kept it academic for the remainder of the game, holding onto their lead in a much quieter second half of play. Quinnipiac was led in scoring by sophomore guard Jaden Zimmerman with 14 points and redshirt freshman guard Samson Reilly who tacked on 11 points of his own. Canisius was led by junior forward Bryan Ndjonga who put up 19 points, and was the only Golden Griffin to score over 10 points on the night.
The Bobcats will be back in action on Saturday against the Niagara Purple Eagles for their final away game of the regular season.
“Three home games left, our goal is to go 3-0” said Quinnipiac sophomore forward Grand Randall postgame.
The Bobcats will face this same Golden Griffins team in just three weeks time for the regular season finale in Hamden on March 1.
