ITHACA, N.Y. – A wintry mix blanketed the roads and walkways of central New York, Wednesday night. Inside the Newman Arena, Cornell’s Big Red endured their own rough patch late in the first half.
Galal Cancer posted a game high as Cornell defeated the Canisius Golden Griffins, 67-60 in non-conference action.
The senior guard scored five midway through the second half as the Big Red pulled away for their third win of the season.
“He’s been tremendous the last few games,” Cornell head coach Bill Courtney said. “When he stays out of foul trouble, he’s been our go-to guy down the stretch. That was a huge stretch from him.”
With Cornell clinging to a four-point lead, Cancer connected on a catch-and-shoot three. He followed with a steal and layup to give the Big Red a 58-49 advantage and 5:42 left in the game.
“He’s attacking the basket and taking open threes,” Courtney continued. “It’s great to see him make a couple open threes because he’s been making them in practice.”
Cancer hit from behind the arc as the Big Red scored the first eight coming out of the half to break open a tie game.
“Coming into this game, we wanted to do it for the full 40 minutes,” Cancer stated. “At halftime, we felt we weren’t playing the way we should, so we came out and pushed each other…Luckily my teammates found me open.”
The run came after a pair of Cornell starters ended the first half on the bench with foul trouble.
“Shonn Miller and Devin Cherry both had two fouls for the last eight minutes of the first half,” Courtney noted. “We weathered that storm which was kind of a great thing. They’re captains. They put the onus on the other guys.”
The pair combined on an alley oop to start the scoring in the second with Cherry feeding his teammate for the slam.
“If we’re able to get stops and rebounds, we’re pretty fast in transition,” Courtney explained. “That allowed us to get out and run a little bit.”
“That’s our identity,” Cancer said. “Speed teams up. Make them do what they don’t want to do. Don’t let them run offense.”
The Griffs battled back repeatedly throughout the second stanza but could not get over the hump.
Trailing by ten, Jeremiah Williams and Josiah Heath scored back-to-back baskets to cut the lead to six at 49-43. The Griffs got a stop on the defensive end but failed to trim the deficit any further.
“It’s a process, but you’re playing teams, especially on the road, that can hit shots, and have upper classmen who are good players,” Canisius head coach Jim Baron stated. “It’s on-the-job training, and they got to step up. We needed guys to step up.”
After Cancer pushed the Cornell lead to nine, Jermaine Crumpton connected on a pair of threes and hit two from the free throw line making it a four-point game at 61-57 with 1:56 remaining.
“He’s very aggressive, very physical,” Baron said of his redshirt freshman. “He’s good that way because he can score inside and outside.”
Canisius missed five of eight free throws in the game’s closing moments.
“We need guys to step up because that’s what it’s all about,” Baron added. “It’s an opportunity for each guy every game we play.”
Phil Valenti played just eight minutes of the first half. The sophomore forward needed stitches in his mouth before returning to the game in the second half. Zach Lewis picked up his fourth foul with 8:54 remaining on the game clock.
The Griffs tallied a trio of easy baskets early in the game to grab a four-point lead. Jamal Reynolds fed Jan Grzelinski for a layup in the open floor. Zach Lewis grabbed a defensive rebound and found Phil Valenti on the leak out. Cassius Robertson scored on a similar play when he got ahead of the defense and took an Adam Weir feed for two.
Lewis gave Canisius its largest lead of the half at 13-9 with a step back jumper in the lane
“We wanted to be aggressive,” Baron explained. “I told our guys ‘just get that thing down the court and attack them.’ I thought we did a real, good job the first half. The second half we just had too many silly fouls. You can’t do that. You got to play smarter and you got play wiser when you’re playing against a quick team.”
“We made an adjustment at half to take away the leak out plays,” Courtney said. “We realized our guys were getting caught pressing.”
Williams sparked a 13-6 run as Canisius and Cornell went into the locker room tied at 32. The senior guard drilled a catch-and-shoot three from the right corner. After Kevin Bleeker converted on one of two free throws, Williams used a crossover to drive from the wing to knot the score at 30. Canisius briefly took the lead when Crumpton hit a pair of free throws.
Cancer closed the half with a drive from the top and reverse layup.
Darryl Smith sparked the Big Red midway through the first half. The sophomore converted a traditional three-point play with a drive from the wing and one. After the under 12 media timeout, Smith nailed a catch-and-shoot three from the corner. His two free throws gave Cornell a 19-16 advantage. Cancer pushed the lead to seven when he grabbed a loose ball in the lane and scored.
Cancer finished with 18 and a team-high eight rebounds. Miller added 13, and Smith had 10.
Cornell outscored Canisius 32-22 in the paint.
Crumpton paced the Griffs with 15. Lewis added 14. Williams had 10. Reynolds pulled down a game-high nine rebounds.
Canisius created 23 turnovers.
Cornell improved to 3-4. Three of Cornell’s four defeats have come by a combined eight points. Canisius fell to 2-2.
Cornell travels to Binghamton, Saturday.
The Griffs take on the University of Buffalo in the Big 4 doubleheader, Saturday at the First Niagara Center. A 4:15 tipoff is scheduled.
ITHACA – The Canisius men’s basketball team may not be in the holiday mood today as the Golden Griffins dropped a close 67-60 decision to Cornell on Wednesday night at Newman Arena.
A crowd of 750 attended the Thanksgiving Eve contest. They saw the Big Red use a 10-2 run to open the second half to seize control of the game for good.
The contest was tied 32-32 at halftime.
Shonn Miller scored seven of his 10 points during the opening 3 minutes, 46 seconds of the half for the Big Red (3-4), who received a game-high 18 points from Galal Cancer.
Canisius (2-2), losers of two straight, pulled within four points three times – the last with 49 seconds left after a Zach Lewis free throw. Lewis finished with 14 points.
Redshirt freshman Jermaine Crumpton (Niagara Falls) scored a career-high 15 points to lead Canisius, which returns to action at First Niagara Center at 4:15 p.m. Saturday against the University at Buffalo.
Canisius went 1-2 on its three-game road trip.
Crumpton’s two free throws gave Canisius a 32-30 lead late in the first half after it had trailed by as much as seven, but Cancer’s layup with 1 second left tied it for the final time.
Shooting doomed the Griffs, as they made just 19 of 57 from the floor (33.3 percent) compared to the Big Red’s 21-of-47 effort (44.7 percent).
Senior guard Galal Cancer scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Cornell men’s basketball team to a 67-60 victory over Canisius in non-league play Wednesday night at Newman Arena.
The win lifted the Big Red to 3-4 on the season, eclipsing its win total of last season, when it finished 2-26. The Golden Griffins fell 2-2 with their second straight loss.
Cancer’s totals were both team-highs. Senior forward Shonn Miller chipped in 10 points and seven boards and sophomore guard Darryl Smith came off the bench to score 13 points, 10 of them in the first half when he shot 2-for-2 from the floor and 5-for-5 from the foul line.
Jermaine Crumpton came off the bench to score 15 points for Canisius, while guard Zach Lewis chipped in 14 points before fouling out. Jeremiah Williams added 10 points and also fouled out.
The Big Red used a 14-3 run in the first half to turn a four-point deficit into a 26-19 lead with 5:16 to go before intermission. Canisius went on a late first-half run and took a 32-30 lead with 31 seconds left on two Crumpton foul shots, but Cancer scored on a layup with one second left to send the teams to halftime tied.
The Red scored the first eight points of the second half — on two thunderous Miller dunks and a Cancer 3-pointer — and didn’t lead by fewer than four points the rest of the night. Cornell took its largest lead at 49-39 on a pair of Smith free throws with 13:27 left.
The Big Red allowed just 33 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from the 3-point line, while shooting 44.7 percent itself (21-for-47).
Cornell hits the road on Saturday to play Binghamton, in a game scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Events Center. The Big Red leads the all-time series, 7-3, although the Bearcats won last year’s matchup, 89-79, rallying from a 19-point second-half deficit.
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell's suffocating defense helped the Big Red snap a three-game skid with a 67-60 win over Canisius on Wednesday evening at Newman Arena. The Big Red improved to 3-4 on the season, while the Golden Griffins fell to 2-2.
The Big Red allowed just 33 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from the 3-point line, contested nearly every made shot and erased the memory of the last two contests - last-minute losses to Penn State and Drexel - by closing out the Golden Griffins in the closing minutes. The win sends the Big Red into a short Thanksgiving break with momentum at the end of a stretch of eight games in 16 days.
Galal Cancer scored 18 points, grabbed a career-high eight rebounds and had four steals, Darryl Smith notched 13 points off the bench and Shonn Miller had 10 points, seven rebounds, two blocks, two assists and a steal in just 22 minutes of action to lead the Big Red. Miller had one of the most dominant four-minute stretches in recent memory to open the second half, propelling a halftime tie into a lead Canisius would never recover from. Cornell held a 40-35 rebounding edge and shot 50 percent from the floor after halftime to mitigate a season-high 23 turnovers. David Onuorah scored nine points, grabbed four rebounds, had two steals, a block and an assist in the win,
Jermaine Crumpton scored 15 points off the bench, while leading scorer Zach Lewis notched 14 points, but was held to 5-of-15 shooting and five turnovers by the Big Red defense. Jeremiah Williams rounded out three Canisius double figure scorers with 10 points.
The two teams ended a ragged first half deadlocked at 32-32. The teams combined for 21 turnovers, 21 fouls and at least a dozen floor burns in the first 20 minutes, and it was Cancer's driving layup at the horn that knotted the score at the break. Cancer ended the half with 10 points and tied his career-best with seven boards at the break. Cornell played a majority of the first half without Miller and Cherry, who each picked up two fouls in the first 10 minutes. In all, five Big Red players had two fouls at the break.
Miller took over the game with a first four minutes that needed to be seen to be believed. His effort to open the second half pushed a tie game to an eight-point lead for the home team.
The second half got kicked off by Miller chasing down a loose ball and finishing a thunderous alley-oop on one end, then finding a wide open Cancer for a 3-pointer for a 5-0 Big Red spurt to make it 37-32. Miller then picked up a steal at midcourt and went the rest of the way for another thunderous dunk. A Golden Griffin player reached in for the foul, and Miller's free throw made it 40-32 just 2:49 into the stanza. Miller came down and blocked a shot to complete the dominant three-minute span.
Canisius never was able to make a real run afterwards, getting within four points on three occasions. Each time the Big Red responded. Cornell made 6-of-8 free throws in the final two minutes to lock up the win, its first over the Golden Griffins since January of 1993.
Cornell hits the road on Saturday to play Binghamton on Saturday, Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. at the Events Center. The Big Red leads the all-time series 7-3.
ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell senior guard Galal Cancer had a game-high 18 points to go with eight rebounds and four steals and the host Big Red shot 50 percent from the field in the game’s second half to knock off Canisius 67-60 in non-conference men’s basketball action Wednesday night in Newman Arena. With the win, Cornell snaps its three-game losing skid and moves to 3-4 on the year, while the Golden Griffins dropped to 2-2.
For Canisius, redshirt-freshman Jermaine Crumpton scored a career-high 15 points off the bench. Sophomore Zach Lewis was good for 14 points and four steals, while senior guard Jeremiah Williams added 10 points to the losing effort. For the game, Canisius shot 33.3 percent from the field, 28.6 percent from 3-point land and 61.5 percent from the free-throw line.
Canisius trailed by six points with 3:56 left in the first half before Williams scored five of the Blue and Gold’s next six points to make the score 30-30 with 57 seconds left before the intermission. After Crumpton knocked down a pair of free-throws with 31 seconds left in the first half top put Canisius up 32-30, Cornell held for the last shot and scored as the first half horn sounded when Cancer drove through the lane and laid one off the glass to knot the game at 32-32 at intermission. Out of halftime, Cornell out scored Canisius 8-0 in the first 2:49 of the second stanza to jump out to a 40-32 lead, with senior Shonn Miller scoring five of those eight points, capped with a break-away dunk and a made free-throw with 17:11 left in the game.
Cornell led Canisius by as many as 10 points midway through the second half, but the Griffs were able to whittle that cushion down to six with 5:25 left in the contest when Crumpton drained a 3-pointer from the left wing. Cornell’s lead ballooned back to as many as nine points before Crumpton again got the Griffs within six at 61-55 with 2:44 remaining after he drilled another trey, this time from the top of the key. With 1:56 left in the contest, Crumpton’s two makes from the charity stripe made the score 61-57 in favor of Cornell, but that would end up being as close as the Griffs would get for the remainder of the night, as the Big Red went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line in the game’s final 45 seconds, while Canisius went just 3-for-8 from the stripe in the game’s final minute of play.
“We missed too many lay-ups and too many free-throws tonight,” Canisius head coach Jim Baron said. “When you’re young and inexperienced like we are, you need to do the little things to win games, especially against teams that have upper classmen. We just need to keep working and keep get better. We forced them into 23 turnovers, but we only scored 18 points off those turnovers. We really need to make teams pay when they make mistakes.”
Cornell ended the night shooting 44.7 percent from the floor and 67.7 percent from the free-throw line. Miller had 10 points, seven boards and two blocks in the win for Cornell, while sophomore Darryl Smith chipped in 13 points. Canisius junior Jamal Reynolds led all players with nine rebounds, but Cornell ended up out-rebounding the Blue and Gold by a final count of 40-35.
Canisius will return to action Saturday, Nov. 29, when the team plays cross-town rival Buffalo in the second game of the Big 4 Basketball Classic, presented by The Buffalo News. Game time in First Niagara Center is set for 4:15 p.m. Game Notes: This was the 43rd all-time meeting between the two schools, with Cornell holding a 26-17 advantage in the series… Wednesday’s game was the first meeting between the Golden Griffins and the Big Red since the season-opener of the 2001-02 season… Crumpton is the fourth different Canisius player to lead the team in scoring this season… Williams has now scored in double-figures in back-to-back games for the first time in his Canisius career… Lewis matched a career-high with his four steals, and he’s now recorded multiple steals in all four games this season… Sophomore Phil Valenti played just 23 minutes and was late coming out of the locker room at halftime after receiving four stitches in his lip… The Griffs drew six offensive charges in the game, a season high.
The Big Red allowed just 33 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from the 3-point line, contested nearly every made shot and erased the memory of the last two contests - last-minute losses to Penn State and Drexel - by closing out the Golden Griffins in the closing minutes. The win sends the Big Red into a short Thanksgiving break with momentum at the end of a stretch of eight games in 16 days.
Galal Cancer scored 18 points, grabbed a career-high eight rebounds and had four steals, Darryl Smith notched 13 points off the bench and Shonn Miller had 10 points, seven rebounds, two blocks, two assists and a steal in just 22 minutes of action to lead the Big Red. Miller had one of the most dominant four-minute stretches in recent memory to open the second half, propelling a halftime tie into a lead Canisius would never recover from. Cornell held a 40-35 rebounding edge and shot 50 percent from the floor after halftime to mitigate a season-high 23 turnovers. David Onuorah scored nine points, grabbed four rebounds, had two steals, a block and an assist in the win,
Jermaine Crumpton scored 15 points off the bench, while leading scorer Zach Lewis notched 14 points, but was held to 5-of-15 shooting and five turnovers by the Big Red defense. Jeremiah Williams rounded out three Canisius double figure scorers with 10 points.
The two teams ended a ragged first half deadlocked at 32-32. The teams combined for 21 turnovers, 21 fouls and at least a dozen floor burns in the first 20 minutes, and it was Cancer's driving layup at the horn that knotted the score at the break. Cancer ended the half with 10 points and tied his career-best with seven boards at the break. Cornell played a majority of the first half without Miller and Cherry, who each picked up two fouls in the first 10 minutes. In all, five Big Red players had two fouls at the break.
Miller took over the game with a first four minutes that needed to be seen to be believed. His effort to open the second half pushed a tie game to an eight-point lead for the home team.
The second half got kicked off by Miller chasing down a loose ball and finishing a thunderous alley-oop on one end, then finding a wide open Cancer for a 3-pointer for a 5-0 Big Red spurt to make it 37-32. Miller then picked up a steal at midcourt and went the rest of the way for another thunderous dunk. A Golden Griffin player reached in for the foul, and Miller's free throw made it 40-32 just 2:49 into the stanza. Miller came down and blocked a shot to complete the dominant three-minute span.
Canisius never was able to make a real run afterwards, getting within four points on three occasions. Each time the Big Red responded. Cornell made 6-of-8 free throws in the final two minutes to lock up the win, its first over the Golden Griffins since January of 1993.
Cornell hits the road on Saturday to play Binghamton on Saturday, Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. at the Events Center. The Big Red leads the all-time series 7-3.
ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell senior guard Galal Cancer had a game-high 18 points to go with eight rebounds and four steals and the host Big Red shot 50 percent from the field in the game’s second half to knock off Canisius 67-60 in non-conference men’s basketball action Wednesday night in Newman Arena. With the win, Cornell snaps its three-game losing skid and moves to 3-4 on the year, while the Golden Griffins dropped to 2-2.
For Canisius, redshirt-freshman Jermaine Crumpton scored a career-high 15 points off the bench. Sophomore Zach Lewis was good for 14 points and four steals, while senior guard Jeremiah Williams added 10 points to the losing effort. For the game, Canisius shot 33.3 percent from the field, 28.6 percent from 3-point land and 61.5 percent from the free-throw line.
Canisius trailed by six points with 3:56 left in the first half before Williams scored five of the Blue and Gold’s next six points to make the score 30-30 with 57 seconds left before the intermission. After Crumpton knocked down a pair of free-throws with 31 seconds left in the first half top put Canisius up 32-30, Cornell held for the last shot and scored as the first half horn sounded when Cancer drove through the lane and laid one off the glass to knot the game at 32-32 at intermission. Out of halftime, Cornell out scored Canisius 8-0 in the first 2:49 of the second stanza to jump out to a 40-32 lead, with senior Shonn Miller scoring five of those eight points, capped with a break-away dunk and a made free-throw with 17:11 left in the game.
Cornell led Canisius by as many as 10 points midway through the second half, but the Griffs were able to whittle that cushion down to six with 5:25 left in the contest when Crumpton drained a 3-pointer from the left wing. Cornell’s lead ballooned back to as many as nine points before Crumpton again got the Griffs within six at 61-55 with 2:44 remaining after he drilled another trey, this time from the top of the key. With 1:56 left in the contest, Crumpton’s two makes from the charity stripe made the score 61-57 in favor of Cornell, but that would end up being as close as the Griffs would get for the remainder of the night, as the Big Red went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line in the game’s final 45 seconds, while Canisius went just 3-for-8 from the stripe in the game’s final minute of play.
“We missed too many lay-ups and too many free-throws tonight,” Canisius head coach Jim Baron said. “When you’re young and inexperienced like we are, you need to do the little things to win games, especially against teams that have upper classmen. We just need to keep working and keep get better. We forced them into 23 turnovers, but we only scored 18 points off those turnovers. We really need to make teams pay when they make mistakes.”
Cornell ended the night shooting 44.7 percent from the floor and 67.7 percent from the free-throw line. Miller had 10 points, seven boards and two blocks in the win for Cornell, while sophomore Darryl Smith chipped in 13 points. Canisius junior Jamal Reynolds led all players with nine rebounds, but Cornell ended up out-rebounding the Blue and Gold by a final count of 40-35.
Canisius will return to action Saturday, Nov. 29, when the team plays cross-town rival Buffalo in the second game of the Big 4 Basketball Classic, presented by The Buffalo News. Game time in First Niagara Center is set for 4:15 p.m. Game Notes: This was the 43rd all-time meeting between the two schools, with Cornell holding a 26-17 advantage in the series… Wednesday’s game was the first meeting between the Golden Griffins and the Big Red since the season-opener of the 2001-02 season… Crumpton is the fourth different Canisius player to lead the team in scoring this season… Williams has now scored in double-figures in back-to-back games for the first time in his Canisius career… Lewis matched a career-high with his four steals, and he’s now recorded multiple steals in all four games this season… Sophomore Phil Valenti played just 23 minutes and was late coming out of the locker room at halftime after receiving four stitches in his lip… The Griffs drew six offensive charges in the game, a season high.
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