BUFFALO — Canisius was on its way to winning their fourth game in their last five overall games in the 197th edition of The Battle of the Bridge.
They had overcome a first half deficit, gotten their crowd back into it and they appeared to be on their way to a victory over Niagara. That is until Niagara head coach Greg Paulus called a timeout with 7:39 to go and his team trailing 50-45.
That stoppage completely flipped the game, one team stopped competing and the other team found their compete level. Niagara’s found a way to make enough plays in the second half to come away with a 59-54 win, Wednesday, at Canisius’ Koessler Athletic Center.
“For us, the best part about it was I didn’t even have to say too much,” Paulus said. “The guys in there were talking about poise, talking about responding. They made their run, Let’s try to make our run now. And so our players had really strong voices and so that made it easy for us to just rally in and try to do it together.”
After the timeout, the Purple Eagles outscored the Golden Griffins 14-6 while shooting 2-for-4 from three and forcing four turnovers.
The Purple Eagles started the game on fire taking a 20-10 lead with 9:17 to go in the opening half, but the Golden Griffins were able to fight their way back into it, getting it as close as two points on two separate occasions, 25-23 and 29-27. But the Purple Eagles did enough to take a 34-28 lead into the intermission.
Canisius’ Khalil Singleton did his best to help his team win, especially early in the second half when he splashed two 3-pointers to turn what was a 39-32 deficit into a 39-38 deficit. That helped spark his team to take their first lead of the day at 40-39 and stretch it out to as large as five-points in the second half.
“They were big,” Singleton said. “They started the run and put us in position to be up. It’s really just about continuing that momentum. … There was a point after that timeout where we just stopped playing and yeah just can’t happen.”
Despite giving up the run to the Purple Eagles, the Golden Griffins still had a chance to win it late when they brought their deficit to within one at 55-54 with 51 seconds to go in the contest. But their hopes were dashed when they sent Trenton Walters to the line where he hit two free throws to take a 57-54 lead.
After the game, Canisius head coach Jim Christian did not hide his frustration with the final seven and a half minutes of the game.
“We stopped competing, with two on the shot clock, we didn’t chase the shooter,” Christian said. “Next time down, we let a guy tee up to shoot the three. We fouled a guy with 33 seconds to go at half court. We were just undisciplined at the game’s biggest times … We were undisciplined on one end and couldn’t make a play at the other end and that’s a recipe for losing and that’s what happened.”
But the Golden Griffins were sunk by their carelessness with the ball in the final 20 minutes, with seven giveaways turning into 12 points. That came after they only gave up four points off four turnovers in the opening half.
Despite getting outrebounded 16-8 on the offensive glass, the Purple Eagles were able to limit the Golden Griffins to 10 second-chance points in this game. Niagara’s Justin Page finished at a plus-five, while scoring 19 points on 7-for-14 shooting.
“We just had to lock in and focus on rebounding,” Page said. “We knew that it’s the first half, they got a couple we should’ve got. But second half we just tried to lock it in and be more disciplined.”
The Purple Eagles are back in action at 2 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 19, when they host Mount St. Mary’s.