By Anna Segota, Staff Writer
Manhattan College’s men’s basketball team claimed a victory in their first home game of the season, fighting off the Felician Golden Falcons.
On Nov. 16, the Jaspers emerged victorious in their long-awaited homecoming after being away for their first two games of the season. Draddy was filled with fans, both students and alumni alike, to watch and cheer on our men’s basketball team.
A tailgate event had originally been planned to be held before the game, with music and fun on the quad. Unfortunately, the event was canceled but is scheduled for a later date.
A large chunk of this year’s team are freshmen playing their first home game ever. One of
Freshman, Seydou Traore, achieved some impressive feats during the game, shooting 75% from the field and grabbing a career-best 15 rebounds and 19 points. Traore told The Quadrangle that he works in tandem with the rest of his teammates on offense, and uses what they give him to reach such a high level of performance.
The game opened with the Falcons stealing the first points, scored by Felician senior
Dee-End McRae. Brett Rumpel soon answered by hitting the Jaspers’ first shot of the game but was soon interrupted by the Falcons’ Jhonny Tovar hitting a 3-point shot, marking the beginning of the Falcon’s run.
The Falcons pulled into the lead, continuing to hit more three-pointers, with the Jaspers
lagging due to several offensive fumbles. At one point, the Falcons held a nine-point lead on the Jaspers with a score of 27-18. Despite the weak offensive performance, the Jaspers maintained a strong defense and were eventually able to catch up. By halftime, the Felician team was ahead, 39-35.
During halftime, the team gathered themselves and decided how to move forward in the
second half of the game. According to players, both talks from the coaches and the team’s determination managed to spark what was needed to make their comeback.
“We had a couple of talks in the locker room at halftime,” said Seydou Traore, on how
the team approached regrouping and staying motivated. “Knowing that we just came back from the loss in Kansas, lit the fire to just keep going out there and keep playing”.
The Jaspers did indeed come back, though the Felician maintained their lead in the first
few minutes. Eventually, the Jaspers began to pull ahead, with Shaquil Bender making the three-point shot that pushed them into the clear, 48-49. From there the men widened the gap with Traore and Bender dominating offensively, while Rumpel spearheaded a strong defense.
“I played really hard and just tried to be aggressive,” Rumpel said when asked about
his defensive performance. “I was able to pick my spots right and make the right plays and I think it was a great game by the team overall.”
The men maintained a steadily growing lead for the last eight minutes of the game, their
victory became certain with the final dagger, a three-point shot from Bender which brought the score to 64-75 in favor of the Jaspers.
“I think it was the stops,” head coach John Gallagher said when asked about the team’s turning
point. “We started defending at a high level and that was the most important thing. We understood that getting stops made them not press us and allowed us to run our half-court offense, which we did a great job within the second half”.
The game ended with the Jaspers leading with 12 points, the final score being 67-79. The
Jaspers had scored an impressive 44 points in the second half, in comparison to the Falcon’s 28. 26 of Jasper’s points were scored by Traore and Bender.