College Park, Md. (March 18, 2006)- For the second time in the last three years, Manhattan has played a major conference opponent in a postseason tournament on head coach Bobby Gonzalez's birthday, and for the second straight time, the Jaspers provided the perfect birthday present, as Manhattan handed top-seeded Maryland their first home loss to a non-conference opponent in its last 29 games, an 87-84 win this afternoon at the Comcast Center in a nationally televised First Round NIT game. With the win, Manhattan improves to 20-10 on the season, the fourth time in the last five years that the Jaspers have reached the 20 win mark, and advances Manhattan to a Monday night matchup with Old Dominion in a Second Round NIT game.
The two teams played evenly in the early going, with the Terrapins holding a four point lead, 12-8, 5:32 into the game. At that point the Jaspers embarked on a 17-3 run to open up a 10 point lead, 25-15, with 11:10 to play before the half. Maryland would answer with a 10-0 run of its own to knot the score at 25 with 8:00 left in the opening stanza. With the score tied at 30-30 with just over six minutes to play in the half, Manhattan again flexed its muscles, outscoring the Terps 17-10 the rest of the half to go into the locker rooms with a 47-37 lead.
Maryland came out the gates quickly in the second half, scoring the first six points, but this was to be the Jaspers' day, as the team used an 16-6 run to take their largest lead of the game, 14 points, capped by an
Arturo Dubois jumper to make the score 63-49 with 13:04 remaining.
Manhattan did not allow the lead to dip below five points over the next 10 minutes, and led by 12, 82-70, with 3:20 left before Maryland went on a late run. The Terps scored the next eight points, fouling out two Jaspers in the process, and bringing the dressed players on the Jasper bench to zero and the Manhattan lead to three when Dubois fouled out with 33 ticks remaining. But, reminiscent of the classic hoops flick Hoosiers, the final man on the Manhattan bench, newcomer
Franck Traore, turned out to be the hero of the day.
Entering the game following Dubois' fifth foul, Traore rebounded the second of two misses from the line by Maryland's Ekene Ibekwe and was immediately fouled. Traore calmly sank the first from the charity stripe, then, after Maryland called a timeout in an attempt to ice the shooter, stepped up and found nothing but the bottom of the net to push the lead back to five with 31 seconds remaining. On the ensuing possession, Traore again came down with the rebound, and
Jason Wingate made his final three free throws to ice the win.
Jeff Xavier led all scorers with 31 points, adding eight rebounds and six steals. Xavier's point total makes him just the fifth Jasper to score 30 or more points in a NIT game. Wingate added 21 points, while Dubois and
Kenny Minor each chipped in with 12.
Travis Garrison paced Maryland with 21 points, pulling down a game-high 12 rebounds.
