Giovanni McLean's Runner Gives Bobcats Narrow Win Over Hartford

Wednesday, December 9

Chase Arena - West Hartford, CT

7:00 PM

Quinnipiac University

4-4

University of Hartford

3-7

Quinnipiac

Hartford

Giovanni McLean's Runner Gives Bobcats Narrow Win Over Hartford

12/9/2015 9:50:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: QU Sports Information

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – Senior guard Giovanni McLean (Bronx, N.Y.) scored the game-winning basket on a 10-foot running bank shot with 1:16 remaining and the Quinnipiac men's basketball team held on as its opponent missed a winning three-point attempt for the second straight game, defeating Hartford 68-66 on Wednesday evening in a non-conference matchup at Chase Arena.

McLean finished with a personal-best 22 points for the Bobcats, who level their record on the year at 4-4 after also defeating Canisius 78-76 on Saturday on a missed three-pointer in the final seconds. Hartford drops its fifth straight to fall to 3-7 on the young season.

Quinnipiac led by as many as 15 points in the second half on two occasions, before Hartford used a 14-0 run to turn a 60-47 deficit into a 61-60 lead with 5:53 left on a three-point play from George Blagojevic. Freshman forward Abdulai Bundu (Upper Marlboro, Md.) finally stopped the run and ended a five-minute Bobcat scoring drought with a lay-up off a feed from senior guard James Ford, Jr. (Hopewell, Va.) but the Hawks scored the next four points to take a 65-62 lead with 2:29 left.

McLean hit two pressure foul shots to cut the lead to one, and after each team split one of two at the line, McLean put the Bobcats ahead to stay with a 10-foot running back shot from the left side with 1:16 to go to make the score 67-66.

Junior forward Donovan Smith (Chicago, Ill.) then came up with a big block to stop a go-ahead shot attempt, and after Hartford earned a stop, Ford pulled in a defensive rebound with just eight seconds left. Ford made one of two at the line, and Hartford called a timeout with 4.8 seconds left in its own end to set up one final play. The ball went in to Blagojevic inside the paint, who kicked it out to the opposite corner to J.R. Lynch, but the Bobcats defended it well, and his off-balanced shot fell into the hands of sophomore guard Ayron Hutton (Virginia Beach, Va,) who dribbled out the final seconds.

The Bobcats improved their all-time record against Hartford to 18-6 with the win, including 8-2 at the Division I level, while avenging a 54-50 home loss a year ago. Head Coach Tom Moore earned his first career Division I coaching win against Hartford, an 85-79 double-overtime victory back on November 11, 2007.

"We might not be a young team, since we brought some older guys in this year," said Head Coach Tom Moore. "But we're a team that isn't used to playing with each other, and where it manifests itself most often is in team offense. We tend to go through these long scoring droughts, and we need to find ways to make those droughts a little shorter. But we've been in a lot of these close games already this year, and I take a lot of pride in the way we consistently fight down the stretch."

The Bobcats went into halftime with a 40-31 lead as Ford capped off the first stanza with a three-pointer from the right wing with 15 seconds left. Quinnipiac started the game un with a 7-0 after two baskets from sophomore forward Samuel Dingba (Yaounde, Cameroon) sandwiched around a McLean three-pointer and the Bobcats led for all but 11 seconds of the first half.

Ford finished with 14 points, a season-high for him, to join McLean in double figures. Senior forward Will Simonton (Vienna, Va.) had eight points on 3-3 shooting off the bench in only 10 minutes as the Quinnipiac reserves contributed 23 points. The Bobcats also won the battle of the galss 44-26, with Dingba and Ford tying for team high honors with eight apiece. Hartford was led by Justin Graham with 17 points.

Quinnipiac will be back in action on Sunday when it returns home to the TD Bank Sports Center for its final home game of the calendar year against Boston University, which tips off at 2 p.m. The Bobcats won't be back at the TD Bank until January 2, when it resumes MAAC play with a home game against preseason favorite Iona.