BALTIMORE – The Canisius College men’s basketball team snapped a 10-game road losing streak that dated back to last season with a convincing 83-65 win on the road over UMBC Thursday night in the RAC Arena. The win, which was the Golden Griffins first road victory since Dec. 18, 2011, improved the Blue and Gold to 4-1 on the year, while the host Retrievers slipped to 1-5 with the loss.
All nine Canisius players that saw time in the game scored, and eight of those players had five or more points, led by junior guard Billy Baron, who scored a game-high 19 points. Senior Harold Washington scored 15 points, while junior center Jordan Heath chipped in 12 points. Sophomore forward Josiah Heath came off the bench and was good for 10 points and six rebounds in the win. Canisius out rebounded UMBC by a 44-27 clip, led by junior forward Chris Manhertz and his game-high 17 boards.
“This was a good road win for us tonight,” Canisius head coach Jim Baron said. “We got a great team effort on the glass and we did a good job driving to the basket and getting to the free-throw line. I also thought our bench did a great job tonight. We wanted to run on them all night, and from the starters to the bench, we just kept it going.”
UMBC led by three points at 19-16 with 9:10 left before the halftime break before Canisius took the lead for good with an 11-0 run over the span of 2:49 to make the score 27-19 in favor of the Blue and Gold with 6:21 left before the break. UMBC answered with a bucket by guard Ryan Cook and a 3-pointer by Brian Neller to make the score 27-24, but Neller’s trey would end up being UMBC’s last field goal for the next 7:51 of game action over both halves, a span where the Griffs outscored the Retrievers by an 18-1 clip to push their lead to 45-25 with 16:39 left on the clock. UMBC guard Joey Getz ended his team’s stretch without a field goal as he knifed through the lane and knocked down a jumper to cut the Griffs’ cushion to 18 points at 45-27. From there, Washington scored Canisius’ next five points, capped by a pair of made free-throws with 14:23 left on the clock, to push the score to 50-29.
Canisius shot 49.1 percent from the field for the game, highlighted by the team’s 50 percent effort from the floor in the second half. The Griffs shot just 15 percent from 3-point land (3-for-20), but the Blue and Gold hit 83.9 percent of its tries from the free-throw line, with Baron going 6-for-6 on the night from the charity stripe. The Griffs outscored UMBC 44-36 in the paint, turned 15 Retriever turnovers into 21 points and posted 16 second-chance points off 13 offensive rebounds. UMBC shot 41.5 percent from the field, made just 3-of-20 shots from long range and shot 57.1 percent from the free-throw line in the losing effort.
Senior center Freddy Asprilla scored nine points and pulled down seven rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench, while Mnahertz added six points to the winning cause. Senior Isaac Sosa and junior Reggie Groves were good for five points apiece and Baron ended the game with a game-high seven assists as Canisius was credited with 16 assists on 27-made field goals.
Cook had a team-high 16 points for UMBC, while junior forward Brett Roseboro added 13 points and two blocks.
Canisius will return to action Friday, Dec. 7, when the Griffs open MAAC play at Fairfield. Game time in Bridgeport, Conn., is set for 7 p.m.
Game Notes: This marked the second time Canisius and UMBC have played, with the Griffs holding a 2-0 lead in the series… Thursday’s game was a return game for the 2011 ESPN BracketBuster series game which was played in Buffalo… Prior to Thursday night’s road win, the last time Canisius won on the road was at South Dakota… The 18-point road victory is the program’s largest road win since Jan. 15, 2011, when Canisius beat Manhattan 72-51 in Riverdale, N.Y… This marks the first time in program history that Canisius won four games in the month of November… The Griffs didn’t win their fourth game of the season last year until Jan. 13… Baron has five or more assists in each of his first five games as a Griff… Manhertz’s 12 rebounds gives him 10-plus boards in 10 career games.
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