ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Tom Pecora’s Bobcats came into Atlantic City in a far different position than in years past. Quinnipiac held the No. 4 seed instead of the top seed they’d earned in each of the previous two seasons. Many thought that might work in the Bobcats’ favor, as four of the last five MAAC champions were not the top seed.
The Bobcats and Red Foxes split their season series 1-1, with both games decided by fewer than 10 points. The catch for Marist was that 46% of the points scored against Quinnipiac in those games came from senior guard Elijah Lewis and sophomore centers Tarik Watson and Jason Schofield — three players who were injured at the end of the season and did not play in the MAAC Tournament. The Red Foxes would have to lean heavily on leading scorers Justin Menard and Jadin Collins-Roberts.
“We were feeling sorry for ourselves, but life goes on,” said Marist head coach John Dunne. “We talked a lot about giving everything to the game… we all had to bounce back, the season goes on, our whole mentality was we were just gonna fight and scrap.”
The game started at a fast pace, with Menard and Grant Randall both knocking down threes in the first three minutes. Matt Monroe also hit a three and threw down a one-handed jam off a steal. Quinnipiac led 16-9 just under five minutes in.
Marist would find its footing and begin to claw back behind solid work on the defensive glass and a few Bobcat turnovers. Collins-Roberts buried a three to tie the game at 19, then followed with a one-handed jam of his own, forcing Pecora to call a timeout.
Menard sank three free throws after being fouled on a three-point attempt by Keith McKnight, then drilled another three to give Marist a seven-point advantage.
Before halftime, Corey Blackwell added two layups, while Parby Kabamba and Myles Parker each scored as well. Marist took a 42-32 lead into the break. Menard led the Red Foxes with 12 points, while Collins-Roberts and Blackwell each had 10. No Bobcat reached double figures, with Monroe leading Quinnipiac with nine. Monroe, Matt Jones and Paul Zimmerman combined to shoot 7-for-23 in the first half — not the production the Bobcats needed from their top scorers.
After a sluggish first two minutes of the second half, Randall jump-started the Bobcats with a three, followed by a Sam Nosakhare layup off a nice feed from Jones. Menard responded with a three of his own for Marist.
Randall then began to put the Bobcats on his back, hitting a jumper and another three while battling on the defensive glass. He took a hard foul from Marist’s Trace Salton that was reviewed and ruled a flagrant-two, resulting in Salton’s ejection. Randall later drew another foul and tied the game at 49 with two free throws.
Randall’s play seemed to infuse Quinnipiac with confidence, as the Bobcats began to share the ball more than they had in the first half. Randall went on to record his first 20-point game of the season and the fifth double-double of his career.
“He’s got a great ability to shoot the basketball. I thought his performance tonight was gutsy — he took that cheap shot and didn’t get rattled, continued to play well and took big shots. I want him to be a cornerstone,” Pecora said.
Marist continued to battle, with Collins-Roberts and Kabamba stepping up. Menard hit another big three to make it 60-59 with 4:32 to play. After two missed free throws from Nosakhare, Monroe grabbed the rebound on the second miss and laid it in. Kabamba, playing with four fouls, answered with a three, but Monroe responded with a reverse layup under the basket. Menard then knocked down another three to give Marist a 65-63 lead with 3:20 remaining.
“Teams go after [Menard], and he was so excited that he turned the ball over at the start, but then he just forgets and he balls. He has done that a number of times this year,” Dunne said.
McKnight and Collins-Roberts traded baskets before Menard drilled two more long-range threes that made you wonder if he would ever stop hitting them.
“[Collins-Roberts] called the play for me, and after the first [three] went down, they gave me all the confidence [to hit those shots],” Menard said.
“It comes from within him, he has the most confidence I’ve seen in anybody, ever,” Collins-Roberts added. “Coach [Dunne] was calling another play, and I essentially told him, ‘No, I want to run something for Justin.’ That’s how much confidence I have in him.”
A McKnight layup cut the Marist lead to 73-69 with a minute left. After a missed free throw from Collins-Roberts, Randall buried a three and was fouled, completing the four-point play to bring the Bobcats within one. After perfect trips to the line from Collins-Roberts and Randall, Blackwell went to the stripe and went 1-for-2.
Tai Turnage brought the ball up for Quinnipiac, drove into the paint and tried to get a shot off, but Blackwell blocked it. For the third straight year under Tom Pecora, the Bobcats failed to reach the MAAC Championship, falling 77-75. The Red Foxes move on to face the top-seeded Merrimack Warriors in tomorrow’s semifinals.
“We knew we were super undermanned, we were undersized at almost every position,” Dunne said. “We came in with the mindset that we were just gonna scrap… [Quinnipiac] showed their character with their comeback. They should be proud of their season.”
Pecora summarized the loss this way: “It happened to us a few times this year where we get our fight back, but we never really learned how to smell blood, and when you have a team on the ropes, you have to have the ability to do that, and we couldn’t do that.”
As for the Bobcats, they now enter a new era. This was Monroe’s last season, and the current landscape of college basketball all but ensures that Quinnipiac players with remaining eligibility will receive offers from higher-level programs.
“We have a talent-laden younger group, but the question is: will they stay? There are going to be a ton of moving parts, and we have to go out and keep finding diamonds in the rough and find young players that are overlooked by the bigger schools,” Pecora said.
Despite the loss, Pecora reflected on what coaching this team means to him and how it has changed him.
“I’m an old fart, they keep me young… when I did television for two years, I missed it. I missed the travel, the camaraderie, getting on the bus with a group of guys. I have always been, my entire life, trying to achieve something with a group of people. Something special.”
