Marist squandered a double-digit lead in the waning minutes and ultimately fell, 91-85, in overtime in a thriller at the McCann Center.
For the second straight year Siena has topped Marist in overtime in the McCann Center. The games share little resemblance, however. Marist boasted a 67-53 lead with 3:25 remaining in the game, but the Red Foxes went 9-of-18 from the free-throw line in the last 2:16 of regulation. Two of the misses were at the front-end of one-and-ones. Siena freshman Kyle Downey emerged as the unlikely hero, sinking two three-pointers in the final 47 seconds of the second half. Downey finished the game with 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting. The freshman entered the game for preseason player of the year Kenny Hasbrouck, who fouled out with 1:33 left in regulation.
Downey never expected to play as large a role as he did, but the freshman knew if his number was called, he needed to step up.
"You can’t really count on that. You can’t really plan on anything," Downey said. "It’s just when your number’s called you try to go out there and do your best. It was just being a threat from the outside. If they throw it to you, you try to make a shot."
Siena head coach Fran McCaffery employed his strategy in hopes that Marist would allow Siena room to get back into the game. Marist did just that. As Marist's free-throw woes continued, Siena started to build momentum, which turned the game around.
"When you start to nibble like that, you could see, we were gaining confidence, they were losing confidence," McCaffery said. "They’re just trying to protect the lead, hold on, get out of here with the W. We sort of forced them to keep playing. I’m just really proud of my guys and the way they handled that situation."
The ending is not a complete surprise for the Red Foxes, however. When Marist traveled to Madison Square Garden for a contest with the Big East's St. John's, Marist shot a dreadful 7-of-25 from the free-throw line. That 28 percent statistic is also somewhat deceiving. Walk-on guard Pat McDerby drained two free-throws in the final minute to bolster Marist's percentage. Whether it was Marist's nerves, inexperience, or the shots just not falling, Marist obviously missed the perfect opportunity to establish itself as a MAAC title contender. With Rider and Niagara falling, a Marist win would have put the Foxes at 4-3 in the conference. Marist is now left to wonder about what should have been.
Marist head coach Chuck Martin knew the game boiled down to free-throw shooting and there wasn't anything complex about the way the game ended.
"We played well, we just missed free-throws. At the end of the game, their stragey was, man, we're in trouble, let's foul and hope they miss them," Martin said. "Fortunately for them, it worked, but that was their strategy. It wasn't rocket science."
Martin also wanted to make sure the final score did not overshadow what Marist accomplished for the better part of 37 minutes on Thursday night.
"Siena does a great job and I have the utmost respect for their program, but we played well," Martin said. "I want to make sure that our fans and our community and the people here understand that they were picked No. 1 [in the MAAC] and they were top 50 in the country. We played great, we were just too young, we were just...compusure at the end, didn't hit free-throws, but we played great."
With a quick turnaround and a game Sunday at Loyola, Marist must put this loss behind them. Martin will try and use this game as a lesson for the players and conceded that players need to experience these types of games to overcome them in the future.
"Some things you just can't speed the process up. One of the problems in today's day-and-age is you've got X-Box and PlayStation, when you lose on PlayStation you just start over again, it doesn't hurt," Martin said. "Not enough kids play and not even kids are in these situations so they can physically feel what it feels like when you lose...Today you've got to go through this process so you can experience it and walk away and say, 'Man, you know what, that hurts,' but not enough kids learn how to care because they haven't been put in that situation before."
Marist and Siena played an even first half, tied 32-32 going into the locker room. Marist led by as many as 15 points in the second half and had the Poughkeepsie faithful in a frenzied state. The Red Foxes brought the raucous crowd to its feet after Dejuan Goodwin floated an alley-oop pass to the rim that a soaring Kaylen Gregory slammed home to give the Foxes a 60-47 lead. Marist led, 67-53, but Siena closed regulation on a 23-9 run.
Marist freshman point guard R.J. Hall led all scorers with 21 points while senior captain Ryan Schneider tallied 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in 44 minutes of gametime. Alex Franklin led Siena with 19 points, 15 of which came from the charity stripe. Marist shot 16-of-30 from the free-throw line for the game while Siena went 27-of-48 from the line.
Marist sits at 7-12 on the year with a 3-4 conference record.
Full press conference below:
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