By: Ryan Chichester
The force was strong with Cameron Young on Thursday night, but not with the rest of the Quinnipiac men’s basketball team.
Hartford erased a late deficit to win a thrilling 77-75 victory over Quinnipiac on Star Wars Night at Chase Arena, despite a career-high 27 points and 10 rebounds from Young.
“My performance didn’t really make a difference,” Young said. “We wanted to win. We played good defensively for the majority of the game but let up a bit at the end.”
The Bobcats were in a position to win consecutive games for the first time all season, but Hartford’s John Carroll scored four straight points for the Hawks after being kept in check by an effective Bobcats defense for the majority of the game.
Trailing by three with 30 seconds left, Jason Dunne scored a driving layup and the Hawks defense quickly forced a five second violation on the Bobcats. On the ensuing inbound, Hartford went for a corner three that bounced off the far rim, but Carroll was there for the putback, and was fouled on the shot. He finished the three-point play to give the Hawks the lead, which they would extend to three on a pair of free throws by Carroll on their next possession.
Quinnipiac’s last hope was a tightly-contested three from Isaiah Washington from the top of the key as time expired, but it missed left and the Hawks’ four-game losing streak was over.
“We probably just needed one or two more stops there at the end,” Baker Dunleavy said. “On the road, you need to build a four, six, or eight-point lead, because when you’re on the road some things will go against you.”
After a dynamic shooting performance on Monday night where Dunleavy’s Bobcats shot 17-for-34 from beyond the arc, the team shot 4-for-14 from three in the first half, and finished just 23 percent from deep.
Hartford used an early 10-3 run to jump out to a 16-9 lead thanks to a hot start from Travi Weatherington, who hit a pair of threes and a driving layup off a nifty spin to get the Hawks offense rolling while the Bobcats took a while to get started.
Isaiah Washington hit a couple threes of his own to pull the Bobcats within two. Chaise Daniels added a tough baseline hook and had some words for the official, who promptly hit the senior with a technical foul.
Daniels came off the bench in the second half, but was quickly pulled after appearing frustrated on the court. Daniels, clearly upset, smacked his chair before taking a seat after being taken out. The senior played just 13 minutes.
“It just wasn’t his night,” Dunleavy said of Daniels’ short stint on the court. “Mentally, physically, whatever it was, he just wasn’t there. But he’s one of our most important guys, so we’re going to stick with him.”
With Daniels out, Washington and Young continued to pace the Bobcats in the second half, when a Young three and Washington elbow jumper gave the Bobcats an eight-point lead, their largest of the game.
Both teams struggled to maintain any offensive rhythm for most of the second half, but the Hawks were able to claw back and tie the game on a corner three by Dunne to ignite the crowd and prompt a timeout by Dunleavy with 10 minutes remaining. Weatherington hit another corner three for the Hawks out of the timeout to give Hartford the lead.
Young would give the Bobcats the lead back with a corner three, but Weatherington struck again with one of his own just seconds later. When the Bobcats tied it minutes later, Dunne provided the response with yet another corner three to put the Hawks back in front, as the back-and-forth affair continued.
Down by a pair with under three minutes remaining, Young misfired on a three-point attempt, but grabbed his own rebound and turned it into a three-point play when he was fouled on the layup, putting the Bobcats in a position to claim another thrilling road win.
The Bobcats forced a Carroll miss with 35 seconds left, but after another Young rebound, Alain Chigha was called for a moving screen, giving possession back to the Hawks with 31 seconds left, setting up Carroll’s heroics and a painful finish for the Bobcats, who are now 1-2 on their five-game road swing.
