The men’s basketball team split their home games this week. The Hawks defeated Sacred Heart on Thursday 63-56. On Saturday, Quinnipiac handled the Blue and White 71-48.
Monmouth (7-18, 5-7) had a chance to take control of sixth place in the Northeast Conference (NEC) with these games and couldn’t take full advantage.
Quinnipiac (13-10, 6-6) is now in sixth place in the conference. The Hawks are tied with Sacred Heart (11-14, 5-7) for seventh.
Thursday night the Hawks faced one of the best scorers in the conference, junior guard Shane Gibson. Gibson averaged 26.1 points a game against conference opponents when they came into West Long Branch. The Blue and White did not allow Gibson to take over the game, but he still managed 22 points, 16 coming in the second half.
Andrew Nicholas kept the Hawks in the game in the first half. He had 11 of Monmouth’s 25 first half points.
“We all started off slow shooting wise. We started shooting too many three’s in the beginning. I just started moving around and my teammates found me. I took open shots,” said Nicholas. “I knocked down some shots. I feel like I got my shot back finally. I struggled the last couple of games.”
With 2:31 remaining in the game, the Pioneers were leading 54-46. The Hawks closed the game out with a 17-2 run.
Junior guard Jesse Steele made a three-pointer at 2:27 to cut the lead to 54-49. An Ed Waite steal at the 2:00 mark led to a Dion Nesmith layup to make it a 54-51 game.
The Hawks’ aggressive defense continued. Austin Tillotson stole the ball from Gibson, and layed it in to put the MU deficit at one with 1:41 left in the game. Louis Montes missed two free throws for Sacred Heart, giving the Hawks the ball with a chance to take the lead.
Ed Waite converted an easy layup with 55 seconds left to put the Hawks ahead 55-54. Another Tillotson layup and a couple Steele free throws put MU ahead 59-54 with only 18 ticks on the clock. Evan Kelly cut the lead to three with a layup and 13 seconds remaining. Nesmith’s clutch free throw shooting put the game away, and the Hawks defeated Sacred Heart.
Nicholas led the Blue and White with 15 points. Nesmith and Steele joined him in double figured, combining for 25 points.
Saturday night the Hawks knew Quinnipiac was one of the best rebounding teams in the country, and this ended up being a huge difference. The Bobcats out-rebounded Monmouth 50-29. The Bobcats had more offensive rebounds (21) than the Hawks had defensive (20).
“When you don’t answer the challenge, you get a beat down, and that’s what we got tonight. We got exactly what we deserved. We got out-toughed, out-played and out-coached,” said Head Coach King Rice. “Quinnipiac played like they wanted to take sixth place over, and we let them.”
The Hawks’ one chance at getting back into the game did not last very long. At the end of the first half and beginning of the second, MU went on a 10-0 run. This cut the deficit to seven at 36-29. From here, Garvey Young scored the next five points to put the Bobcats up 41-29 and take total control of the game.
James Johnson was the games’ leading scorer totaling 18 points, nine in each half. Ousmane Drame led the game in rebounding, grabbing 10 boards.
Steele scored Monmouth’s first nine points, and led the team in scoring with 13. Nesmith added 10 more points for the Hawks.
This week Monmouth has two games against rival Farleigh Dickinson. They travel to Hackensack, N.J. Wednesday night for the first game. Saturday night at 7:00 pm the game is in the MAC.
These NEC games will be crucial in determining Monmouth’s conference tournament fate.
