Box Score Newburgh, NY
(Feb. 3, 2015) – The Purchase College men's basketball team fell in overtime Tuesday night at Mount Saint Mary.
MSMC's Connor Nicholson sent the crowd into a frenzy after draining a 3 from the far corner to send Tuesday's contest into overtime. The momentum from his shot carried over into the extra period, where the Knights edged the Panthers to pick up a 66-63 Skyline Conference victory over the defending league champions at the Kaplan Center.
With the win, the Knights improve to 6-13 overall, but more importantly, they now hold a 5-7 Skyline record, putting them in position for a late playoff push. The loss drops Purchase to 5-6 in the conference and 5-13 overall on the year.
Purchase led by 14 at the half. In the closing seconds, the Knights turned the ball over in the back court, leading to a buzzer-beating layup by
Nicholas Jackson to put Purchase up, 32-18, at the break.
In the second half, the Knights managed to cut the deficit to five on a layup by Alex Smith with 13:57 to play in regulation.
After a jumper by
Creig Graves (JR/Harlem, NY), a made 3 got the Knights within four.
After a Purchase foul on the other end of the court, Daniel Wolff converted on a jumper to put the Knights within two points.
Panther point guard
Jose Reyes (JR/Bronx, NY) tried to stop the momentum with a 3 of his own, but Gerard Nocera connected on a 3 on the next play for the hosts.
Purchase managed to pull back out to a five-point lead, but shortly later the hot-handed Wolff hit another long ball to put the Knights in the lead at 48-46 as MSMC slowly chipped away.
Nocera sank a layup on the next Knight possession to push the lead to four with the clock reading 7:14.
Troy Singleton (JR/Queens, NY) got Purchase back within one following a 3-pointer, and the Panthers tied the game on a free throw the next time they had the ball.
Smith turned the game back in the Knights' favor by scoring the next four points, but Purchase turned it back around with the next five to go up, 55-54, with 2:53 to go. However, a free-throw tied the game for MSMC.
The final 30 seconds of the game were as dramatic as could be. Reyes attempted a long three to give Purchase the lead, but
Michael Pelham (SO/Spring Valley, NY) managed to steal the rebound, and turned it into a three-point play after drawing a foul on a good layup and making the ensuing foul shot.
The Knights regrouped with a timeout, and drew up one more play with the hope of tying the game.
After firing the ball around the perimeter, Nocera found Nicholson as far into the corner as he could be, where he shot one off from seemingly behind the basket and hit nothing but net to tie the game with eight seconds to play.
Pelham ran down the court and got off a decent three-point opportunity, but it hit the side of the rim.
The Panthers won the opening tip of the extra frame, but the Knights forced a missed 3 by Singleton.
Having yet to cool off, Wolff lined up deep and made a 3 right in front of the Knight bench to put the Knights up, 61-58.
Justin Person (SR/Greenbugh, NY) made a layup for Purchase to cut it back to one, but Smith then hit one-of-two from the charity stripe to put the home team back up by two. He was fouled again on the Knights' next possession, and made both to double the lead. Smith continued to take over, and got a good roll on a layup the next time he saw the ball to improve the Knight lead to 66-60.
Singleton followed up Smith's layup with a deep three to cut the Knight lead in half with 1:38 to play.
Purchase chose to hold for one final shot to try and tie the game on their final possession. Reyes fired from way downtown to try and tie with four seconds to go, but was unable to connect. Time expired before either team could grab the rebound, and the Knights bench stormed the court to celebrate their biggest win of the season.
Smith posted a double-double with 16 points and 16 rebounds.
Singleton led the Panthers with 14 points and seven rebounds off the bench in their loss.
-MSMC Sports Information Contributed to this report
