Bulldogs salvage road split
Bryant goes wire-to-wire in victory over Red Flash
Jared Grasso and the Bryant University men’s basketball team were sick of losing to Saint Francis at Degol Arena.
Grasso, who last beat the Red Flash in Loretto, Penn. when he was a talented guard on the 200001 Quinnipiac squad, decided to try something unorthodox to change his and the Bulldogs’ luck. Grasso borrowed some sage from his wife, Andrea, and brought it with him for the eight-hour bus ride to western Pennsylvania.
After Thursday’s defeat to the Red Flash, Grasso brought the sage to the arena on Friday and burnt it in the locker room to try and change the team’s luck. Whether it was the sage or the team’s hot shooting, the Bulldogs finally exorcised some demons. Redshirt senior guard Peter Kiss poured in a game-high 22 points and center Hall Elisias added nine points and a career-high 20 rebounds in a 72-63 Northeast Conference victory.
“I thought it was a good idea,” Elisias said about lighting up the sage in the locker room. “When emotions are high, it’s always good to try and find ways to keep everyone even-keeled and I thought it was a great way for us to stay in the moment and realize that we’re playing a game at the end of the day. The most important thing we want to do is just compete.”
“I can’t reveal my sage-burning secrets, that’s a team secret that will stay between us,” said Grasso, whose last win at Saint Francis was a 69-66 decision on Feb. 24, 2001. “The sage will come home in its bag and return to my wife’s draw. Everyone will be happy. My wife will have her sage back and we finally have a win at Saint Francis and we can have a little bit happier bus ride home than I’m used to from Loretto.
Bryant (10-3, 6-2 Northeast Conference) won at Degol Arena for the first time since 2013 and a big reason for that was 3-point shooting. Just one night after the Bulldogs uncharacteristically shot 25 percent from 3-point range (7-for-28) they connected on 10 of their 24 attempts, led by Kiss’s four made 3-pointers. Chris Childs hit three and Michael Green III (16 points and four rebounds) made a pair.
Saint Francis (2-7, 1-4 NEC) went the opposite direction. One night after going 10-for-25 from 3-point range, the Red Flash were an abysmal 3-for-22 and all three were made by guard Bryce Laskey. The rest of the team was 0-for-14.
“I think the sage had a lot to do with it,” Grasso joked. “When you’re making shots you’re a lot better. So for us, obviously when you’re shooting the ball well you’re a better team. We shot 10-for-24 from 3 and we talked about it yesterday because we missed shots we normally make. If we make four more 3s then we end up with 94 points. Sometimes it does come down to make or miss.”
Red Flash leading scorer Ramiir Dixon-Conover led the hosts with 18 points and five rebounds and four steals, while Marlon Hangis came off the bench to add
One night after never leading by more than two points, the Bulldogs grabbed a three-point lead just 2:01 into the opening half on a 3-pointer by Charles Pride and never looked back. The Bulldogs led by as many as 10 points early in the first half and entered halftime up seven thanks to 12 points from Kiss and 13 rebounds from Elisias.
Saint Francis, last year’s conference tournament runner-up, didn’t allow the Bulldogs to pull away in the second half, but the hosts never made it a one-possession game. Kiss made a long 3-pointer midway through the half to stretch the lead out to 11. It was bounceback effort from Kiss after going 4-of-13 from the field with three turnovers in an 89-82 loss.
“Pete wasn’t going to lose today,” Grasso said after the wing added six assists, four rebounds and two steals to an impressive 7-of12 performance from the field. “He grabbed me after shootaround and apologized for his performance [Thursday]. He wasn’t happy with the way he played.”
Bryant’s defense was certainly superb, but the Bulldogs put the contest away from the foul line. While the Red Flash were just 2-for-4 from the line over the final 20 minutes, the Bulldogs were 15-of-19, including Green’s 6-for-6 effort.
Even though Thursday’s defeat dropped the Bulldogs 19 spots in the NCAA’s Net Rating, Grasso is pleased to be riding back down Interstate 80 with a split of the series. He was happy with the resilience his squad showed after losing the first game of a conference back-to-back and he was even more pleased that the Bulldogs did it on the road to remain atop the conference along with Long Island.
“I knew that this was not going to be an easy trip, so we learned that we have the toughness to bounce back from a loss because we haven’t been in that situation before,” Grasso said. “We haven’t lost the first game of a doubleheader, We haven’t had a long bus ride like this. We haven’t played at 7 p.m. game like [Thursday] in a month. There were a lot of things that were out of our comfort zone in this trip.”
The Bulldogs have a full two weeks to prepare for their next road trip because they won’t play again until Saturday, Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. against Fairleigh Dickinson in Hackensack, N.J. The teams will finish the series the following day at 4 p.m.