Seawolves Fight Back Late, but Come Up Short Against Wildcats

By Henry Danner

The Stony Brook Seawolves followed up an 83-81 loss to Hartford, with a disappointing 68-60 loss Wednesday night against the New Hampshire Wildcats.

When Stony Brook’s head coach, Steve Pikiell, was asked what his players failed to do that they did well in the previous game, he said they just did not make shots. The Seawolves shot a miserable 35.3 percent from the field and three point land.

The Seawolves got off to an early lead behind good play from freshman forward, Jermol Paul. Paul had nine points and four rebounds before leaving the game with 6:20 left to play in the half due to foul trouble.

“He’s capable of scoring points,” Coach Pikiell said of the 6’4 swingman. “He’s gonna’ be a real good player for me.”

When Paul got into foul trouble the Seawolves were in the midst of a scoring drought that would produce the first lead change of the game. It would be the last as the Wildcats embarked on a 7-0 run and did not look back for the rest of the night.

New Hampshire was led by their 6-8, senior forward, Mike Christensen, with 25 points. Christensen caused early problems for the defense with his sweet stroke. He finished the game shooting 8-11 from the field, and 50 percent from downtown.

“He can shoot the ball and he’s too big for our guards,” Pikiell said.

The problems continued for the Seawolves on defense, as they lost the battle of the boards. Stony Brook was out-rebounded 38-30, but they suffered the most on the defensive glass as the Wildcats finished the game with 17 offensive rebounds.

Coach Pikiell said that New Hampshire shoots a lot of threes, which means long rebounds, and his guards simply did not do a good job of hustling for those long balls.

In the second half Stony Brook the game began to slip away from them. At the 4:43 mark the Wildcats had a 14 point advantage, the largest lead of the game. It was at this point that the Seawolves began to give their hometown crowd something to cheer about as they began to fight back in a last minute attempt to pull out a win.

Seawolves’ star player, Ricky Lucas, who scored a career high 33 points in the Hartford match, led the Seawolves in scoring with 22 points. Nine of those 22 came within the last four minutes of the contest.

The comeback charge was led by Lucas and the Seawolves got a quick whiff of a possible victory when junior guard Michael Tyree hit the biggest shot of the game, a three-pointer that put the Seawolves down two with 1:44 left to play.

On the ensuing play, Tyree came up big again with a steal and he had a chance to tie the game up, but he failed to convert a 2-on-1 fast break into points.

After the Wildcats converted one free-throw, Stony Brook still had one more chance, down three points with about a minute left to play. But a quick turnover by sophomore guard Eddie Castellanos, slammed the window of opportunity shut.

The loss gives the Seawolves a 1-6 conference record and 4-15 overall. It also extended their losing streak to six games.

Stony Brook looks to return to the win column February 2nd as they travel to Albany. Game time is set for 7pm.