Photo courtesy Quinnipiac Athletics
By: Chris Dacey
It was senior day in Hamden as the Quinnipiac men’s basketball team honored Danny Harris, Alain Chigha and Donovan Smith on Sunday afternoon. Head coach Tom Moore added Harris and Chigha to the starting lineup, while Smith is out for the season with a broken foot.
But after all this, there was still game that needed to be played as Rider was in town. The last time these two teams played defense was optional as both teams scored over 100 points. But this time the score read 99-82 in favor of the Broncs. This was the Bobcats’ sixth straight loss.
“It seemed like we had energy and emotion,” Moore said. “But there were times in the game we just looked defeated with our body language.”
One place the Broncs defeated the Bobcats was in the paint. Rider scored 60 of its 99 points in the key. Starting forward Norville Carey tallied 20 points on the game while grabbing five rebounds.
Quinnipiac was somewhat shorthanded today as junior guard Reggie Oliver was home due to a death in his family, and Peter Kiss only played 17 minutes due to a temperature.
“That was a tough break for him [Kiss] and a tough break for us,” Moore said. “We tried to get something out of him.”
However, the Bobcats had someone else step up in the absence of these two players. Sophomore guard Andrew Robinson proved that much needed spark off the bench. When Quinnipiac first played Rider, Robinson had 17 points off the bench including some big threes. This time around, Robinson started his day off sinking his first three threes.
“I know couple of dudes on their team so I always get amped up for this game and whenever we play them,” Robinson said.
But Robinson also said the environment in the locker room is not quite where it needs to be going into MAAC Tournament play.
“I mean it’s obviously tough to lose six games in a row but me and my teammates have not lost faith yet,” Robinson said.
With the MAAC tournament less than a week away, the Bobcats are locked in the eighth seed and will have a game on Thursday, March 2, in Albany, N.Y.
In that game, Quinnipiac will be playing either Marist or Niagara, depending on the outcome of Siena versus Marist on Sunday afternoon. The winner of this game will play top-seeded Monmouth in the next round.
As for Moore and his seniors, he had much praise for all three of the players.
“Donovan has grown incredibly as an athlete and as a student and as a person,” Moore said.
Moore also said that Chigha, the one senior that was at Quinnipiac for four years, was a leader early in the season for everyone and set the tone for the whole season. And for Harris, Moore said he has no doubt that he will be successful in anything that he pursues.
As for this team’s future and the MAAC Tournament, Moore still thinks this team needs to find its identity even though the regular season is over.
“We have more of an identity then we had in November but still not as much as an identity as I like,” Moore said. “I just want us to be more complete.”
