BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Following a score by sophomore center Jordan Gabriel, Marist men’s basketball led Lehigh 51-50 with 5:45 to go at Stabler Arena on Friday night. The lead was Marist’s first of the game and came after facing a seven-point halftime deficit.
The advantage lasted for 64 seconds.
The Mountain Hawks came right back to defeat Marist 65-60, capitalizing on the Red Foxes’ mistakes in the closing minutes to sink Marist to 1-3 to open the season.
Trailing by two with 1:35 to go, Gabriel committed a costly turnover at the top of the key that led straight to a ferocious dunk by senior guard Joshua Ingram. On the Mountain Hawks’ ensuing possession, Ingram jammed home another to again extend the lead to four with 37 seconds remaining.
“This is what happens when you have a lot of young guys,” Marist head coach John Dunne said. “We don’t have the firepower that we can overcome simple mistakes…you gotta make the chippies and you gotta make the opponent earn their points at the end of the game.”
Marist struggled mightily from the field in the first half, shooting under 30% and scoring just 23 points. The Red Foxes struggled to find quality looks inside and failed to make several of the ones they created against Lehigh’s bigs, especially in the presence of junior forward/center Hank Alvey, the pre-season Patriot League Player of the Year.
“We just didn’t make any shots in the first half,” Dunne said. “We had a few ugly possessions, but I thought we had a lot of good ones too and the shots didn’t go.”
Freshman guard Dywane Chess scored 19 points to lead Marist, falling just short of his third consecutive 20-point performance. Graduate student guard Jadin Collins-Roberts added 18 of his own; the two guards and Gabriel, who had 14, led Marist’s offense to the near second half comeback.
Freshman wing Logan Rodriguez, who left the game and did not return after taking a hard fall and grabbing his shoulder in the second half, turned the ball over on Marist’s final offensive possession of the first half. The giveaway led to a tough finish through contact at the other end by sophomore guard Chris Tshibola to put Lehigh up by seven at the break.
Outside of a few possessions in the first half, Chess flew largely under the radar offensively for Marist.
That changed immediately in the second.
On Marist’s first possession, he buried a free-throw line jumper. Then, on the subsequent trip, the freshman put back a Collins-Roberts miss for a 3-point play to even his first half scoring output in the second half’s first 70 seconds.
The offensive continued to run through Chess from there, but with less success. After missing a shot, he backed down a Lehigh big and stumbled, turning the ball over en route to an Alvey fast-break score.
Marist held Alvey to just three points in the first half, but he scored seven before the second half’s first media timeout to maintain Lehigh’s halftime lead.
After Chess’ short early half burst, Collins-Roberts picked up the slack. In a stretch that seemed to feature Marist’s captain and Alvey trading blows, he scored seven straight points for the Red Foxes before a Gabriel score cut the lead to three with 13:29 to play.
The Mountain Hawks again responded, but Gabriel continued his hot evening to keep Marist right in the game. He converted two on consecutive possessions to make it a one-point game and improve his shooting line to 5-for-5.
The Red Foxes cut the deficit to one four more times in the ensuing minutes, but Lehigh seemed to respond each time until Gabriel gave Marist its short-lived lead.
With Lehigh back in front by one, Chess was charged with an illegal screen — his fourth foul — before the Mountain Hawks built a five-point lead, their largest since the 12:26 mark in the second half.
Chess made a triple with 3:21 to go and nearly tied the game on the following possession when his shot seemingly fell halfway down before rimming out. Soon after, though, he made a pair of free throws to even the score with a shade over two minutes remaining.
Marist did not see a tie — or the lead — again.
“It’s just a lot of inexperience out there…they scored four points where they didn’t have to earn anything,” Dunne said.
Ingram slammed home his pair of jams on consecutive Lehigh possessions. The Red Foxes had to start fouling with under 20 seconds left, and couldn’t complete the comeback.
“There’s light at the end of the tunnel as long as we continue to have good spirit and get better everyday,” Dunne said.
Marist returns to the floor Tuesday on the road against Army West Point. Tip is set for 6 p.m.
Edited by Michael Schiavone
Graphic by Xavier Angel
Photo by Jaylen Rizzo
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