Marist men’s basketball picked up its first win of the season on Thursday night, an 88-80 shootout home win over UMBC in the America East-Metro Challenge.
A pair of freshman guards led the way for the Red Foxes. Dywane Chess scored 20 points on four 3-pointers while Brady MacAdams scored 17 on three triples. After the two combined for 10 points in the season-opener on Monday, they showed a glimpse of the scoring dynamic they can bring to the Marist offense.
“In the first game, I wasn’t letting the game come to me as I feel I did today,” Chess said. “Even at times [today] I felt a little sped up, but I know that’s something that I gotta keep working at.”
Following an 18 turnover performance on Monday, the Red Foxes looked to be taking another step in the wrong direction in the early going against the Retrievers. They had nine turnovers before the 10-minute mark in the first half, but adjusted after that—they gave the ball away just five times the rest of the way.
“They’re not the pressure team that Dartmouth was…they weren’t coming at us in waves like the other day, which was good for us,” Marist head coach John Dunne said. “I thought a lot of our turnovers early in this game were just careless, undisciplined…after the beginning of the game, I thought we just settled down and got more disciplined.”
Graduate student guard Jadin Collins-Roberts finished just shy of a double-double with 16 points and eight rebounds. 12 of his points came from the free throw line; after going to the charity stripe a career-high 12 times on Monday, he upped his personal best to 15 while making several big ones to help close the game.
After trailing by as many as eight in the first seven minutes, the game seemed to turn after the Red Foxes nearly committed their tenth turnover of the first half when Chess dribbled the ball off his leg. The ball took a fortuitous bounce into the hands of sophomore center Jordan Gabriel, who kicked it out to the corner where freshman guard Brandon Arnold knocked down a wide open triple.
An 11-2 spurt immediately followed—including another Arnold triple from the same spot—to give Marist a 23-21 lead. After starting 5-for-5 from the field, UMBC made just two of its next 12 shots while the Red Foxes made their run.
As the half wound down, Gabriel converted a couple of nice makes as part of a 10 point performance; in the season’s early going, he has shown a new penchant for getting to the rack and creating looks for himself.
“Jordan’s [Gabriel] got a chance to be a really good scorer…all the touches that he’s getting now [are] really all new to him,” Dunne said. “He’s going to get better and better as time goes on, so hopefully we’ll have a good three-headed monster at that position.”
The Retrievers opened the second half on a quick 8-3 run that tied the game at 41, but Chess stemmed the bleeding with his fourth triple to put the Red Foxes back in front by three.
Chess continued to make an impact from there. With 15:03 to go, he delivered a pretty bounce-pass to freshman wing Logan Rodriguez for an easy bucket. On the following possession, he drilled a step-back mid-range jumper with the shot-clock winding down to grow the lead back to five.
Gabriel converted through contact shortly thereafter, but the Retrievers kept the game in striking distance. Sophomore forward JP Ndong brought the Retrievers back within one with a tough finish, but back-to-back triples by MacAdams and a pull-up jumper by senior guard Jack Graham extended Marist’s lead back to nine and forced a UMBC timeout.
With 5:12 remaining and Marist in front by eight, MacAdams drew a foul on a 3-point attempt. UMBC head coach Jim Ferry disagreed with the call, argued vociferously with the officials and first earned a technical foul before being ejected from the game. As the Marist crowd waved goodbye, he was escorted off the court by one of his assistants while continuing to yell at the officials.
MacAdams proceeded to have seven free throw attempts—three for the shooting foul and two for each technical foul assessed to Ferry. He made six, and all of a sudden Marist’s lead ballooned to 75-61.
UMBC again worked its way back into the game. A drive and score by redshirt fifth year guard Devin Ceaser cut the deficit to five with 1:30 remaining; the Retrievers scored 12 points in about three and a half minutes to work back into the game.
UMBC cut the lead to four points in the final minute, but Marist managed to weather the storm and solidify the win. Collins-Roberts and Chess combined to go 10-for-12 from the line in the last 60 seconds to keep the Retrievers at bay.
“I pride myself in making free throws,” Collins-Roberts said. “It makes a difference…if Dywane Chess doesn’t make the free throws at the end, if I don’t make the free throws at the end and Brady MacAdams doesn’t make his free throws, it’s just a different ball game.”
Marist will return to the court on Sunday on the road against UMass Lowell. Tip is set for 1 p.m.
Edited by Mike Schiavone
Graphic by Xavier Angel
Photo by Jaylen Rizzo
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