5-0. A perfect month for Marist men’s basketball, the first such month in program history.
A dominant showing from the Red Foxes made their fifth win of the month look easy, as they outscored Binghamton 46-24 in the second half and won 69-51.
Extending their current win streak to five games, 9-2 is the 11-game best start for a Marist team in 26 years when they started 10-1 in 1998/99. The win is the Red Foxes’ 20th in the 2024 calendar year, the highest since 2007.
Junior guard Elijah Lewis has arrived. Entering today, he’s averaged 17 points and 6.7 rebounds in his last three games. The Adelphi transfer outdid himself once again with a season-high 21 points and three 3-pointers along with six rebounds and a season-high six assists.
After an adjustment period to Division I, Lewis is revealing his full offensive game and offers a go-to option for Marist for the rest of the season.
“Where I was proud of him was finding other ways to score. Today the [3-point shot] fell for him. He’s going to be a dangerous guy for us. He never put his head down and tries to get better every play,” said Marist head coach John Dunne.
Sophomore guard Josh Pascarelli and redshirt freshman center Jason Schofield added 15 and 10 points respectively, helping spark a Marist team that trailed by four at halftime and looking sluggish offensively in the opening 20 minutes.
The Red Foxes shot 63% from the field and 6-for-9 from 3-point range in the second half to quickly do away with Binghamton. Marist performed defensively through the entire game with a team in Binghamton shooting 39% from three as a team going 5-for-20 today.
“We did a good job of taking those guys [shooters] out of the game. We were locked into their personnel, their sets, I was proud,” said Dunne.
Both teams started slow offensively shooting under 30% from the field during the first half. Lewis and senior forward Nehemiah Benson scored four each for their teams in the opening 10 minutes.
Graduate forward Ben Callahan-Gold nailed two 3-pointers and scored eight points off the bench to spark some offense for Binghamton. Lewis matched that with multiple smooth drives and finishes.
Another Bearcats graduate player, guard Tymu Chenery, followed with three 3-pointers to give Binghamton their largest lead with five minutes left in the first half. Pascarelli scored six straight Red Fox points to prevent any real separation.
Binghamton kept their lead the rest of the half despite shooting one of their last eight and went into the break ahead 27-23.
“We had cloudy minds. We were messing up play calls, running pays wrong that we don’t typically do,” said Dunne.
Marist came out firing with an 8-0 run to begin the second half. Lewis and Pascarelli drained a 3-pointer and sophomore guard Jadin Collins-Roberts scored in transition.
“The perseverance [we have]. We were down four going to halftime and in the second half got the lead in the first two, three minutes,” said Pascarelli of what he’s most impressed with about his team.
Through the under-12 timeout, Binghamton scored just five second-half points. Marist defended well all afternoon, forcing tons of interior misses. The Bearcats shot 13-for-39 inside the arc and had just one player score at least 10 points.
With Marist leading by double digits, Binghamton head coach Levell Sanders switched to a zone defense to change the game’s dynamic. The switch was short-lived, and the Red Foxes immediately pushed their lead back to double digits after the Bearcats scored four straight points.
Marist freshman walk-ons Jagger Bascombe and Antoni Vlogianitis entered in the final minutes. Bascombe scored on his first attempt with a minute left.
“I love it when moments like that happen. Jagger is always going to the basket. He has unexpected bounce so just seeing that is good for the team,” said Lewis.
Binghamton’s second-leading scorer junior guard Chris Walker finished with six points and 1-for-6 shooting. Last season he dropped 19 points and five 3-pointers in this matchup.
The win puts a nice conclusion on the Red Foxes’ non-conference schedule, going 7-2 in those games. Today was a contrast to the close games Marist scrapped wins out of multiple times this season.
“We’ve been in nothing but close games until today and been winning a lot of them. We made enough shots and were able to pull away,” said Dunne.
Marist enters its full MAAC schedule with a road trip to face Iona on Friday, January 3. Tip-off at Hynes Athletic Center is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Edited by Dan Aulbach
Photo from Jaylen Rizzo
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