Thursday, February 10, 2000
Xavier 87, Canisius 78
Musketeers catch selves before fall
BY MICHAEL PERRY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Xavier led Canisius College by 20 points just 10:16 into Wednesday night's game.
The deficit was down to 14 by halftime.
Then six with 8:15 remaining.
And four with 2:35 to play.
The Musketeers caving in again?
Almost.
XU, which has blown three double-digit leads this season, got away with an 87-78 victory over the Golden Griffins. The Musketeers had no field goals in the final four minutes but hit 11 of 15 free throws to hold on.
“Again, we sewed the seeds of our demise with some turnovers and tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” XU coach Skip Prosser said.
“We'll take it and run with it. We're probably not 20 points better than a lot of teams we're playing ... The biggest problem is, when teams make their runs, we're not answering them. Tonight, to a degree, we did do that.”
Canisius sure made it interesting. It trailed by 12 with 6:27 to go, but was within 77-73 with 2:35 left after a driving layup by Clive Bentick. That followed a Maurice McAfee turnover.
Xavier called a timeout.
Then Lloyd Price turned it over trying to pass inside to David West.
“Panic? That's how you lose,' McAfee said. “That's how we've been losing. It was calm. Just relax and everything will be OK. We've been here before. At least that's the thought that came into my head.”
After another timeout, Canisius' Toby Foster got off an open 3-pointer that missed.
On Xavier's next possession, Darnell Williams was fouled on a 3-point attempt. He made two of the free throws to make it 79-73.
Then Dorian McClure missed a 3-point try, and the Golden Griffins' rally was over. They never got closer than 84-78 with 22.8 seconds left.
“We had to make the plays this time around,” Williams said. “We hit the big free throws and got the big stops and got the big rebounds. It's never going to be easy this time of year. You've just got to find a way to win.”
“It was a matter of running out of time,” Canisius coach Mike MacDonald said. “If we have five or 10 more minutes, maybe we're OK. But you can't get those minutes back when you toss them away in the first half.”
McAfee led XU with 18 points and also had six rebounds and eight assists. Williams added 17 points, West 14 and Price 14 points and 10 rebounds off the bench. West was 6-of-6 from the field.
The Musketeers finished with a 46-29 rebounding advantage, including 21 offensive boards. Canisius had only three turnovers in the second half.
“You've just got to stay positive,” Price said. “We know some games are going to come ugly.”
Sophomore Kevin Frey may have hit one of the bigger baskets of the night, nailing a 3-pointer with 4:05 left to put Xavier up by 11. That was XU's last field goal.
Xavier improves to 14-8 and finishes 10-3 in non-conference regular-season games. Canisus, No. 220 in Wednesday's RPI rankings, is 6-17.
The Musketeers ended a four-game losing streak on the road but are just 2-5 away from the Gardens since Jan. 1.
Prosser was not planning to play Price, who dislocated his left ring finger Saturday and didn't even practice much at Wednesday afternoon's shootaround. Price told Prosser at the end of the shootaround that he felt OK, and Prosser still considered not using him.
“But right now we're fighting for our basketball lives,” the coach said. “There's no use saving him. We need to try to win every game.”
The crowd of 2,331 was the smallest Xavier has played in front of this season, and in the 18,400-seat Marine Midland Arena it was so quiet you could hear the coaches and players yelling throughout the game.
Junior center Darren Fenn, the leading scorer for Canisius (17.1 ppg), finished with 19 points and eight rebounds, but he was just 1-of-6 from the field with four turnovers in the first half.
The Musketeers led 7-5, then went on a 24-6 run. During a span of almost nine minutes, Canisius managed only two field goals.
When Price grabbed an Alvin Brown miss and dunked it with both hands, that put Xavier ahead 31-11.
“We wanted to give them what we had, just come out with everything,” said junior Reggie Butler, who scored two of XU's first three baskets on offensive rebounds.
Price shakes pain, gets double-double
XAVIER (87)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
West 30 6-6 2-4 2-7 0 1 14
Mcafee 38 3-11 10-12 1-6 8 1 18
Butler 17 3-6 0-0 3-3 0 3 6
Williams 27 5-15 4-5 2-7 3 4 17
Brown 27 2-9 0-0 1-2 4 2 5
Frey 22 3-7 2-2 2-3 2 3 9
Price 27 5-9 3-4 3-10 1 1 14
Turner 12 2-3 0-2 3-4 0 0 4
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 29-66 21-29 17-42 18 15 87
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.439, FT-.724. 3-Point Goals:
8-24, .333 (Mcafee 2-7, Williams 3-10, Brown 1-2,
Frey 1-2, Price 1-3). Team rebounds: 4. Blocked
shots: 6 (Price 3, Williams, West, Butler).
Turnovers: 13 (Butler 3, Mcafee 3, Frey 2, Turner
2, Price, West, Williams). Steals: 3 (Price,
West, Williams).
CANISIUS (78)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Sawyers 27 6-10 0-0 2-3 3 3 14
Foster 28 2-4 0-0 0-2 3 3 5
Fenn 34 7-14 5-6 1-8 0 4 19
Bentick 32 5-9 0-0 0-0 7 1 13
Dux 21 3-5 2-2 0-2 2 3 9
Mcclure 24 2-10 2-4 0-1 4 3 8
Bush 19 3-7 0-0 3-4 2 1 6
Young 3 0-0 2-2 0-1 0 2 2
Mallory 12 0-3 2-2 0-2 0 2 2
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 28-62 13-16 6-23 21 22 78
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.452, FT-.813. 3-Point Goals:
9-20, .450 (Sawyers 2-2, Foster 1-3, Bentick 3-5,
Dux 1-1, Mcclure 2-7, Mallory 0-2). Team
rebounds: 6. Blocked shots: 3 (Mallory, Sawyers,
Fenn). Turnovers: 10 (Fenn 4, Foster 3, Bentick,
Dux, Sawyers). Steals: 7 (Foster 2, Bentick,
Fenn, Mallory, Sawyers, Young).
__________________________________
Xavier 45 42 - 87
Canisius 31 47 - 78
__________________________________
Technical fouls: Xavier 1 (Frey). Canisius 1
(Bench). A: 2,331. Officials: John Hughes, Ken
Clark, Bob Perlman.
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