By Paul Gotham
BUFFALO, NY – The first six games of the Canisius Golden Griffins season came with their share of frustration. With the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference pre-season player of the year and two other returning starters from last year’s 20-win squad, the Golden Griffins hoped to hit the ground running. Instead the Griffs lacked continuity and gathered little momentum.
One weekend of conference play seemed to put those six games in the distant past.
A quartet scored in double figures as the Golden Griffins improved to 2-0 in the MAAC with a 93-78 victory over the Siena Saints at the Koessler Athletic Center, Sunday afternoon.
Behind a lethal long-range attack the Griffs raced to a 21-point halftime lead and never looked back. Five different players connected from behind the arc as the Blue and Gold hit 10-of-15 from three-point range.
“I really thought our kids came out fired up, and we stepped up,” said Canisius head coach Jim Baron. “It’s a good way to start off the season with 2-0 in the conference.”
The Griffs dished out 15 assists on 26 field goals in the first twenty.
“We made the extra pass,” Baron said. “This team is very unselfish. They look for each other. Let’s face it. We made shots. You look like a great team and a great coach when you make shots.”
The Griffs wasted little time pushing the lead to double digits. Billy Baron sparked a 13-2 run which started before the first media timeout. The senior point guard scored back-to-back baskets in transition and fed Jordan Heath for a catch-and-shoot three from the top of the key for a 19-9 lead.
“That’s how we play,” Jim Baron added. “We play to score the ball. We play to get it down. We play to attack.”
Dominique Raney got it started with a trey from the left corner when Chris Perez drove from the right wing and falling out-of-bounds fed Raney opposite.
The redshirt sophomore notched a career-high 19 points on the night. He hit 6-of-7 from the perimeter and 3-of-4 behind the arc.
“It’s really being comfortable on the court and knowing that my teammates got my back,” Raney said. “I come in and just do what I can for the team. I don’t look to score. I don’t look to do anything. I look to help out where I can.”
Chris Manhertz added a pair of free throws during the spurt.
Zach Lewis scored eight straight for a 27-13 lead. The freshman guard from Windsor, Conn. nailed a catch-and three, finished a three-on-one situation with a layup and drilled another 3-ball.
After suffering a thigh contusion during a pre-season contest against Division III Daemen, Lewis appears to be back to full strength. He scored a career-high 15 on 6-of-13 shooting including 4-of-8 behind the arc.
“Him being injured really took a lot out of us as a team,” Jim Baron noted. “He’s a guy who can give us that spark off the bench. Plus, he’s another ballhandler. You really need ballhandlers the way we play, the way we run, and the way we attack. It’s definitely a welcomed addition to have him.”
Billy Baron drilled back-to-back 3-pointers and pushed the lead to 20 at 33-13.
Canisius outscored Siena 10-4 to close the half for a 57-36 lead.
Baron, who scored just nine points in Friday’s 82-67 win over St. Peter’s, hit five field goals in the first half and dished out eight assists.
Raney nailed a pair of threes, grabbed a loose ball and delivered a two-handed slam to start the second stanza, and Canisius led 66-38.
But Siena chipped away at the lead. Their full-court press caught the Golden Griffins off guard and the Saints trimmed the lead to 10 with a 15-3 run.
“When I came in at halftime I said ‘it was zero-zero,’” Jim Baron explained. “You got to start all over again. You don’t know how to act. This is a new basketball team, and we don’t know how to act when we have that kind of a lead. We got to be on guard, and we got to stay focused…As we attack our offense, we gotta attack our defense. We gotta stop people, and then we got to rebound.”
Billy Baron finished with a game-high 21 points while handing out a career-high 13 assists.
“My teammates made me look really good today,” Baron said. “Yeah, I got them the ball, but those guys were hitting shots.”
“Baron’s a great player,” said Siena head coach Jimmy Patsos. “He really knows how to play.”
Siena came into the weekend 2-7. The Saints knocked off Niagara, 84-71 to set up a first weekend battle of the undefeated.
“I thought I would have to reel our guys in today to play,” Patsos explained. “(I thought) they’d be so excited to sweep Buffalo and come out of here in first place. But that’s why kids are difficult to read today…I thought we would want it a little bit more, but shame on me.”
Jordan Heath, who scored a career-high 28 and grabbed 10 rebounds in Friday’s win, added 15.
Perez scored seven and dished out four assists. More importantly, the graduate student held Rob Poole, Siena’s leading scorer, to just nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the floor.
“Chris Perez did a great job on the kid Poole,” Jim Baron stated. “I really thought he was the difference maker of that basketball team. Chris did a great job on him defensively.”
Brett Bisping led Siena with 17 points and nine rebounds. Michael Wolfe and Maurice White chipped in with 14 and 10 respectively.
Siena outrebounded Canisius 35-30 and outscored the Griffs in the paint, 60-22.
Canisius scored 20 fast break points to Siena’s 8. The Griffs also held advantages on second-chance points (16-14) and points off turnovers (17-14).
The 57 points in the first half is the largest one-half output since the Griffs scored 63 in 20 minutes against Maine on January 10th, 1979.
The game represented the 800th in Jim Baron’s head coaching career. Prior to Canisius, the Brooklyn native has led St. Francis (Pa.), St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island in a 27-year career.
Canisius meets Big 4 UB Wednesday night at the First Niagara Center. The game is the second of a doubleheader with Niagara and Davidson set to tipoff at 6 p.m.
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