CLINTON, N.Y. – Desmian Greer (Washington Heights, N.Y. / Chesire Academy) led all scorers with 28 points Saturday afternoon at Hamilton, but it wasn't enough as the Continentals pulled away late in the second half for a 69-63 home victory.
SUNYIT played a solid game wire-to-wire and simply came up a few breaks short. The Wildcats showed tremendous fortitude in putting together a number of runs to even the score or even take the lead throughout the game. Chief among those was a 9-3 run at the start of the second half, which resulted in a 37-36 lead for SUNYIT – their first since 13:24 in the first half.
It was at that point, however, that Hamilton sophomore Matt Hart took over for the Continentals. The 6-foot guard scored eight of Hamilton's next 9 points. Hart had a tremendous day, scoring 27 points on 9 of 15 shooting. Hart's dribble penetration and hot shooting were nearly the only things that caused problems for the SUNYIT 2-3 zone defense, however, which turned in the Wildcats' best defensive performance of the year to this point.
Despite Hart's hot streak, the Wildcats climbed back to within a point of the lead twice after that, including at the 6:35 mark when SUNYIT trailed just 49-48. Again, however, an individual run for the Continentals kept SUNYIT from taking the lead, as guard Joseph Lin (younger brother of the NBA's Jeremy Lin) scored the next 7 points for Hamilton in a 7-0 Continental run.
SUNYIT valiantly gave chase, however, despite a 9-point deficit with just 1:20 remaining. The Wildcats scored seven straight to pull to 65-63 on a three by Greer from the corner. With just 25 seconds left, however, SUNYIT was forced to foul, causing T'Andre Richardson (Utica, N.Y. / Utica-Proctor) to foul out of the game. Richardson turned in a solid performance with 12 points and 6 boards to take second in both categories on SUNYIT.
With 14 seconds left Hamilton would make one free throw and miss the second – tragically for the Wildcats, however, a miscommunication caused the rebound to go out of bounds, giving the ball back to Hamilton. On the ensuing double-bonus free throws the Continentals proceeded to ice the game resulting in the final score of 69-63.
Highlights for SUNYIT included forcing 18 Hamilton turnovers compared with just 12 for the Wildcats, and SUNYIT got to the line 24 times compared with 20 for the Continentals. Unfortunately SUNYIT converted just 63% of those attempts compared with 80% for the Continentals. SUNYIT will look to shore up their prospects at the charity stripe moving forward.
SUNYIT has a week off before hosting SUNY Cortland in the Wildcats' first home game of the season. The game is slated for this Friday, Dec. 7th, at 8:00 pm.
