By Budd Bailey
Niagara defeated Siena in men’s college basketball, 69-68, at the Gallagher Center on Friday night.
And here’s the fun part: The game was closer than the score indicated.
It was a heck of a start to conference play for both teams in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The game came down to the final 10 seconds with all sorts of twists and turns that left everyone in the building a bit exhausted.
Let’s set up the scene: Jahari Williamson’s clutch three-pointer for Niagara with 36 seconds left tied the score at 68-68. Justice Shoats missed a potential go-ahead shot from medium range with 10 seconds left. Jaeden Marshall of Niagara grabbed the rebound and took off down the court … only to be fouled by Brendan Coyle of Siena. Marshall made one of two free throws to put the Eagles up by a point.
Siena called timeout with 5.5 seconds left. Shoats received the inbounds pass, headed for the hoop, and threw up a shot that bounced away from the rim. Coyle grabbed the rebound and tried to one-time the ball toward the basket. He missed, the buzzer sounded, and the 1,050 in the building screamed with delight.
But wait.
The officials had called a foul on Marshall on Coyle’s putback attempt, and they didn’t know when the foul was taken place. Everything froze until after a video review it was ruled that the foul came with seven-tenths of a second left.
“I was looking at the shot, but I didn’t see him get hit. I knew he did get hit,” Siena coach Gerry McNamara said.
Coyle went to the line with a chance to win, tie or lose the game depending on his free-throw shooting. Coyle had made three straight free throws with two seconds left to send Siena to overtime in the Saints’ opener, and was shooting .882 from the line for the season when he stepped to the line.
Miss. Miss.
“I was definitely surprised when he missed them,” Justice Smith of the Eagles said.
“You’re always thinking about what’s next,” Paulus said. “How much time is left on the clock? Do you take the timeout to set the defense and see what they are going to do? Our guys did a great job of forcing the miss (by Shoats). We tipped it out, and they made a heady play. …. I thought (the foul) was the right call. After looking at it on the iPad, it was get to the next play. We were fortunate.”
The remaining moments ran out, and Niagara had improved to 4-5 overall while Siena fell to 4-5.
“I’m very disappointed with the result,” McNamara said. “I told (Coyle) to keep his head up. He won a game for the same way this year. … It’s a tough situation to be in, to go through that. He’ll get tougher from that. … It’s unfortunate that it played out that way, but he’s been a great player for us.”
The game more or less seemed destined to go down to the final buzzer or beyond. There were only a couple of five-point leads in the first half, which was low scoring and finished in a fitting 28-28 tie. Both offenses became more efficient in the second half and had some brief runs, but the other team always responded … until the end. The scoring was quite balanced on both sides, as the two teams each had four players in double figures. Smith led Niagara with 17 points, while Major Freeman led Siena with 16.
Since Niagara turned over its entire roster in the offseason – one of the few schools in the country to do that without a change in coaches – it’s been hard to know where the team might be headed this season. Just to play in a game like this figured to be beneficial to the Purple Eagles in the coming weeks.
“As of a couple of years ago, this is the conference that had the most one-possession games in the country,” Paulus said. “I don’t know if it’s still true. We grew up in some areas today. This is the first time that this group has had a chance to experience something like this. For us, they responded and we were fortunate to make one play at the end there.”
The two teams took slightly different approaches to the start of the MAAC season. McNamara had hopes of getting matters off to a good start this weekend with a couple of wins.
“They count (in the MAAC standings) now as much as they do in February; I like it,” he said. “Our message was, we can get off to a great start. Now that’s their message. We weren’t able to capitalize on this game, and now you need short-term memory. You can’t feel sorry for yourself.”
Meanwhile, the Eagles may have been taking some notes on what to expect the rest of the way.
“The intensity for conference play is definitely up there,” Jhaylon Martinex of Niagara said. “Like Coach always says, is about us and our system, taking it day by day.”
“For us, we try not to think long term,” Paulus said. “How can we get better individually? … Whether he made the free throws or missed them, we need to turn the page (Saturday) and prepare for the next one.”
Niagara hosts Merrimack on Sunday afternoon, while Siena stays in town to play at Canisius at the same time.
Noteworthy: The coaching matchup on Friday had a definite Orange tint to it.
Paulus spent a season playing football at Syracuse University in 2009 after finishing his basketball eligibility at Duke. Meanwhile, McNamara is one of Syracuse’s basketball legends. He helped the Orange win a national championship in 2003 as a freshman, and eventually he had his uniform number retired.
‘I’ve known Gerry for a long time,” Paulus said. “When I was a freshman in college, he was a senior. Going through the recruiting process, I watched his career. I have so much respect for Gerry as a player and as a coach. I’m happy for him to have the opportunity to have his own program. We’ve known each other 20 years now. We never got to play because Syracuse was in the Big East and Duke was in the ACC. Every time I go back, I try to see Coach (Jim) Boeheim and the football coaches. We’ve coached against him (when McNamara was an assistant coach at SU) and seen him on the road in recruiting.”
(Follow Budd on X.com @WDX2BB)
Comments