Heavy Drama As QU Men's Basketball Escapes Canisius With 78-76 Win

Saturday, December 5

Koessler Athletic Center - Buffalo, NY

7:00 PM

Quinnipiac University

3-4, 1-1MAAC

Canisius College

3-4, 1-1MAAC

Quinnipiac

Canisius

Heavy Drama As QU Men's Basketball Escapes Canisius With 78-76 Win

12/5/2015 9:21:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: QU Sports Information

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Sophomore guard Ayron Hutton (Virginia Beach, Va. - pictured) banked in a three from well beyond the midcourt line at the halftime buzzer to give Quinnipiac its first lead, and the Bobcats held off a furious last-minute rally from Canisius to earn a 78-76 road win on Saturday evening in a MAAC contest at the Koessler Athletic Center.

With the win. Quinnipiac improves to 3-4 overall on the year and 1-1 in the MAAC after splitting its opening two-game Buffalo trip. Canisius falls to 3-4 overall and 1-1 in the MAAC with the defeat.

Quinnipiac led by 10 with 38 seconds left and had to hold on for dear life, as two missed front ends of one-and-ones and two turnovers gave Canisius the ball with 10 seconds left down by two and the chance to tie or win. Chris Atkinson missed a go-ahead three-pointer with four seconds left, and two Golden Griffin putback attempts to force overtime missed as the horn finally blew to signify the Quinnipiac win.

The first half ended in equally dramatic fashion, with the Bobcats taking their first lead of the game (35-33) on a 70-foot three-pointer from Hutton who scored after Quinnipiac inbounded the ball under its own basket with 0.9 seconds left. That capped off a 15-2 run to close out the opening stanza after Canisius had taken a 31-20 lead with 5:07 to go.

The second half was back-and-forth, but Quinnipiac used a 10-0 run to pull ahead 60-53 with 8:04 left. Sophomore guard Dimitri Floras (Nashua, N.H.) started the run with a tying three-pointer, and senior forward Will Simonton (Vienna, Va.) put the Bobcats ahead with a layup off a pass from junior forward Donovan Smith (Chicago, Ill.). Senior guard Giovanni McLean (Bronx, N.Y.) followed with a three, and a Smith jumper ended the 10-0 run to give Quinnipiac a 60-53 lead.

Canisius rallied back within one point at 60-59, but the Bobcats scored the next seven points, starting with a McLean three-pointer and ending with a Hutton running bank shot to give him 10 points, to go back ahead by eight. McLean's three-pointer with 1:45 left put Quinnipiac ahead 77-67 and appeared to be the final dagger, but Canisius rallied to almost comeback for an improbable win.

Quinnipiac trailed by 10 early (14-4) but battled back in on the offensive glass, where they outrebounded the Golden Griffins 28-11 in the first half, with 13 of the 28 coming on the offensive end. Simonton had a pair of putbacks and sophomore Samuel Dingba (Yaounde, Cameroon) had an emphatic dunk off an offensive rebound to help turn the momentum.

The Bobcats were playing without sophomore forward Chaise Daniels (Meriden, Conn.), who was injured four minutes into yesterday's 76-72 loss at Niagara and did not dress. Daniels, who came into the weekend as the team's top post scorer, rebounder and shot blocker, will be evaluated when he returns to campus. McLean, Quinnipiac's leading scorer, also limped off midway through the first half and did not return until the 11-minute mark of the second half.

Smith had 12 of his 14 points in the second half to lead the Bobcats. Ford added a season-high 13 points, McLean had 12, 10 of which came after he returned from his injury in the closing minutes, as he scored in double figures for the sixth straight game to start his career, while Hutton added 10. Phil Valenti led Canisius with a game-high 25 points and nine rebounds, as Canisius closed the rebounding gap to 45-33 by game's end.

"I'm just really proud of the heart and toughness that our guys showed coming off a tough loss last night," said Head Coach Tom Moore. "Not only did we lose the game, but we lost Chaise for a while, who went down right in front of our bench, and he's a popular locker room guy who his teammates really like, so it was tough to come back from that and play the next day. We got off to a slow start, and Canisius was playing really well, and then we just dug down and found a level of toughness that you love to see as a coach."

Quinnipiac is back in action on Wednesday when it makes the short trip up I-91 to take on intrastate rival Hartford for a 7 p.m. contest. The Bobcats will then return home to the TD Bank Center on Sunday for a non-league game against Boston University, beginning at 2 p.m., before a break for final exams.