A late-game comeback attempt ended in heartbreaking fashion for the Central men’s basketball team, losing 54-52 at home to the Long Island University Sharks on Sunday afternoon. The Blue Devils, after winning five-straight games, have now lost their second in a row.
Head Coach Patrick Sellers said that the Sharks’ defensive tactics at the start of the match caught the Blue Devils off guard.
“If you watch the second half of the [LIU vs Stonehill] game, they mixed up their defense from zone and going back to man, and that really took Stonehill out of rhythm,” Sellers said. “[LIU] started the game like that in the first half against us, and it took us out of rhythm too. We kind of got disjointed offensively, and then we missed a lot of makeup shots.”
Central’s offense was led by junior guard Devin Haid whose scoring kept Central in the game all the way until the end. Haid was the only Central player in double figures, putting up 20 points on 7-of-16 shooting, including 3-of-5 from 3-point range. He also contributed defensively, notching 7 rebounds in 35 minutes of action.
“The loss always hurts,” Haid said, “but just listening to my coaches, taking a lot of settled shots in the first half, then they’re telling me to attack the rim more and attack their players, so that’s what I did in the second half and it started to help out.”
The Blue Devils struggled in several key areas, but their performance at the foul line once again proved pivotal. Central finished 13-of-20 from the free-throw line, missing seven crucial attempts in a game decided by just two points. This marked the second consecutive game where missed free throws made the difference; in their previous loss to Wagner, the Blue Devils missed nine free throws and lost by five.
“We came into the Wagner game leading the league in free throw percentage,” Sellers said. “I’ve been saying it since the summer, I think we could lead the league in free throw percentage because we have so many good foul shooters. And then, for some odd reason, [in] the Wagner game, we don’t make them, and it bleeds into this game. The first half, we kind of looked spooked on the free throw line, and [in the] second half, we got it going again.”
Another area where Central struggled was in the paint. LIU dominated down low, scoring 30 points — more than half of its total points — close to the bucket, while the Blue Devils had just 22.
Central came into Sunday’s game against LIU off the back of a 62-57 defeat at home to Wagner on Friday. It was the Blue Devils’ first defeat since mid-December and their first in the Northeast Conference. The Sharks were hot coming into the game against Central, winning their previous three matches and beginning conference play undefeated.
The first half was a low-scoring affair, evidenced by a combined four points scored by both teams in the first three minutes. A 6-0 run by the Sharks put them ahead 7-3 with 15 minutes to go. The Blue Devils would come back and take a 10-9 lead after senior guard Davonte Sweatmen banked a 3-pointer to cap a 7-2 run by Central. The Sharks then went on a 15-6 run in the final 10 minutes to close out the half with a 24-16 lead.
LIU continued its momentum in the second half, taking a nine-point lead — the largest of the game — when they went up 26-17 at the 18:32 mark. Both teams would spend the next several minutes trading buckets, with Central unable to cut into LIU’s lead and the Sharks unable to build on their advantage.
However, a 3-pointer from Haid, followed by a fast-break layup from senior guard Jordan Jones, brought the Blue Devils back within 2 points, 37-35, with 11:14 remaining. Following a timeout, the visitors wrestled back control of the lead, extending it back up to 9 with 8:23 remaining.
Over the next four minutes, Central went on a 13-2 surge that was capped by a Haid three-pointer, putting the Blue Devils up 49-47 and giving them their first lead since the 9:11 mark of the first half. This prompted the Sharks to call another timeout with 4:23 left in the contest.
Central’s comeback and retaking of the lead sent Detrick Gymnasium into an uproar. The Blue Devils spent the last 25 minutes of the game behind, only to find themselves with a chance to claim victory with four and a half minutes left. Haid’s go-ahead 3-point shot gave him 20 points, with 15 of them coming in the second half alone.
LIU’s timeout once again disrupted Central’s momentum, leading the Sharks to score seven-straight points and retake the lead, 54-49, with 2:17 to go. Senior forward Jayden Brown and Jones would go 3-of-4 from the foul line in the final minutes, cutting the deficit to 2 with 40.9 seconds left. The Blue Devils called a timeout after a long, scoreless possession by the Sharks left Central with only 12.9 seconds left to either tie or win the game.
Following the timeout, Jones drove into the paint for a layup but came up short. The ball went out of bounds and the Blue Devils regained possession, giving them another chance with 5.6 seconds remaining. Jones inbounded the ball to senior forward Abdul Momoh who handed it back off to Jones for a three-point attempt. Smothered by two LIU defenders, Jones lost possession of the ball before being able to get a shot off, resulting in a 54-52 loss for Central.
Despite the defeat, the Blue Devils outscored the Sharks 36-30 in the second half, allowing them to stretch the game until the final buzzer. Sellers applauded his team’s turn-around from the first half.
“[In the] second half, we came out, we were better,” Sellers said. “We handled the zone to man better. We ran. We got good stuff going, and then [Devin Haid] got a lot of stuff … We got to the basket a little bit in the second half, and it got us to the free throw line … Defensively, these guys really put their hard hats on and went to work.”
Haid agreed with Sellers, adding that if the team played in the first half the way they had in the second, Central wouldn’t have been fighting from behind.
“I think we came out stronger in the second half,” Haid said. “[We] did what the coaches asked us to do. We should have been ready to do that in the first half, and that’s what got us in that hole early.”
With their second loss-in-a-row, the Blue Devils fell to 2-2 in the Northeast Conference and 11-6 overall on the season. In an unusual start to conference play, Central won its first two games away, only to lose its next two at home.
They go on the road again for their next two matches, starting with FDU on Saturday, Jan. 18, followed by Le Moyne on Friday, Jan. 24. They’re back home on Sunday, Jan. 26 when they take on Chicago State.
