Men's Basketball Falters Late against Canisius

JERSEY CITY, NJ – The Saint Peter's men's basketball team squandered a late lead to Canisius College on Sunday afternoon, falling 72-68 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) game. The Peacocks failed to score over the final 2:48 of the contest, leading to their second straight conference defeat of the season.
 
How it Happened

• Derrick Woods got off to a fast start, scoring the first two Peacock points in the paint to give the home team a 4-0 lead.
• Canisius answered, scoring the games next 11 points to take an 11-6 lead over Saint Peter's.
• Consecutive layups by Doug Edert and KC Ndefo would stop the run and cut the deficit to 11-10. 
• Trailing 16-10, Dallas Watson connected on a layup plus a free throw for a three-point play, cutting the score to 16-13. 
• Still down, Saint Peter's overtook the lead using a 7-0 run over a 2:17 span, highlighted by a reverse Watson layup off a feed from Ndefo and then a made three-pointer by Watson coming off a dish from Matthew Lee --- Saint Peter's would be up 20-18 after the run.
• The Peacocks lead would stay intact with the team gaining a five-point advantage (28-23), their largest of the half, after Lee found Edert for a wide-open triple.
• The back and forth match resumed and tied at 35-35. 
• With less than 10 seconds to play in the half, Canisius hit a three with the shot clock winding down to give the Griffs a 38-35 lead at intermission.
• In the second half, Saint Peter's would do its best to chip away at the Canisius lead. 
• After falling behind 46-39, a quick 6-0 spurt brought the game to within a point. It took a layup by Quinn Taylor, followed by a Fousseyni Drame dunk, and a jumper by Daryl Banks III (46-45).
• The teams exchanged one basket each, and then F. Drame scored four points in six seconds, earning a putback layup and then stealing the ball on the ensuing possession and finishing with a fastbreak flush while also getting fouled.
• F. Drame would make the free throw and Saint Peter's lead would be 52-48 (11:36).
• The game immediately returned to trade-off mode, with Canisius knotting it up at 52, and then the contest went blow for blow to the tune of a 57-57 tie.
• Edert broke the tie with an off-balance trifecta and Saint Peter's would remain ahead and extend its lead to 68-63 when Banks made a layup with 2:48 to go.
• From that point on, Canisius outscored the home squad 9-0, leading to the 72-68 setback. 
• Over the final 2:48, the Peacocks missed three field goal attempts and had two turnovers, both coming by way of questionable charge calls on consecutive possessions late in the game.

Inside the Numbers

• Saint Peter's had three-players score in double figures for the first time since the MAAC opener.
• Edert was the team leader on the scoreboard, with a Peacock-best 13 points, followed by Watson and Woods who each added 11 points. 
• F. Drame was one point off a double-digit afternoon, finishing with nine points, while Ndefo totaled seven points and seven rebounds.
• Neither team ever gained clear control of the game, evident by the overall time with lead stat --- Peacocks (17:28), Griffs (17:22) --- and the teams split the in-game battles right down the middle. 
• Saint Peter's had the advantage in the game on points in the paint (36-32), fastbreak points (11-7), and bench points (33-28). Canisius had the edge in rebounds (35-29), points off of turnovers (16-13), and second chance points (9-3).
• Additionally, there were nine lead changes and nine ties throughout the battle.
• The Peacocks drop to 2-2 on the young MAAC season.

Up Next          

• Peacocks hit the road for the longest road stretch of the conference slate.
• The three-game stretch away from the Yanitelli Center begins on Wednesday, Jan. 15 at Fairfield.