Hartford jumps all over Bryant in 17-point victory
Townes scores 34 points in disappointing defeat
SMITHFIELD — The phrase “desperate times call for desperate measures” wasn’t formed with the Bryant University men’s basketball team in mind. Given what transpired on Wednesday night, the aforemen- tioned saying might as well have been tattooed on the walls inside the Chace Athletic Center gymnasium.
There were the Bulldogs on Wednesday night, set to begin the second half in a 20-point hole against Hartford. Those are some desperate times, indeed.
The desperate measures came when head coach Jared Grasso opted to replace threefifths of his starting lineup. The tactical maneuver did little in the way of to curbing Hartford as the visiting Hawks soared to a convincing 91-74 win in Bryant’s final game before a nine-day layoff for exams. The Bulldogs pull into the break with a 2-7 record with six of those loses coming by double digits.
All was not lost during Bryant’s latest loss. Junior Sabastian Townes popped for a career-best 34 points on 13-of-17 from the field – he did not attempt a single threepoint field goal – and was 8-of-10 from the free-throw line. Despite the big night, it’s clear the end result did not sit well with Townes.
“I have a really bad taste in my mouth because of the season we’re having,” said Townes. “I know we have a new coaching staff, but like coach has said, it’s not one of the years where we’re reconstructing from the ground up. We’re trying to build something right now. I have less than two years left. In my time here, I don’t remember a time when we were .500.”
After Townes, the scoring for the Bulldogs fell off considerably. Leading scorer Adam Grant was relatively quiet with 13 points while Byron Hawkins netted the 1,000th point of his career as part of a 13-point effort.
Hartford (3-7) shot 62 percent for the game and received 30 points from forward George Blagojevic and guard Jason Dunne splashed in 19 points on five 3-pointers. The Hawks, who also got 15 points from guard J.R. Lynch, won going away despite not having John Carroll, who came in averaging 16.9 ppg.
The strategy that Grasso employed for long stretches in the first half was interesting to say the very least. The Hawks were off to a perfect start (5-of-5) from the field when the Bulldogs opted to make a massive substitution. Out came starters Grant, Townes, Hawkins, Joe Kasperzyk, and Patrick Harding. That group was replaced by Nino Hernandez, Brandon Carroll, Taylor McHugh, Tanner Johnson and Juan Cardenas.
It didn’t matter who was out on the court for Bryant. Hartford just kept on humming along.
Up 23-17, the Hawks ripped off a 20-2 run that included four 3-pointers and 14 straight points. The Bulldogs came into the game allowing 45 percent efficiency from three and the Hawks became the latest club to feast, hitting a sizzling 7-of-10 during the first half and finished 13-of-20 (65 percent) for the game.
Hartford led by double digits for the game’s final 26 minutes. For Bryant, falling behind by a good chunk with still plenty of time remaining continues to be a disturbing trend.
“I thought we were competitive during the second half. I don’t know why we weren’t during the first half,” said Grasso.
Still, Grasso knows that it’s not time to push the panic button, not when the real season for the Bulldogs begins in less than three weeks. Bryant has two more games – December 21 at home against Dartmouth and December 29 at nationally-ranked Iowa – before the script is flipped to NEC play.
“I would love to beat Dartmouth and Iowa, but we need to be significantly better by the start of league play. That’s on me. This is my program to figure it out,” said Grasso. “I need to figure out the roles by January so we can reach the conference tournament and make a run.”
On the injury front, Grasso said junior point guard Ikenna Ndugba will be re-evaluated on Saturday. Ndugba has been out with a shoulder injury that required surgery.