Oswego State Lakers men’s basketball drops the regular season finale to the College of Brockport Golden Eagles 80-75 on Saturday afternoon. The Lakers finish the regular season overall 19-6, and 15-3 in SUNYAC.
The Golden Eagles after a tough defeat last night to SUNY Cortland secure the No. 2 seed with today’s win for next weekend’s playoffs in Oswego.
Oswego State guard Ian Schupp finished the game with a career-high of 31 points with four shots from downtown. Tyler Pierre grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds to go with his 8 points.
For the Golden Eagles, Hamed Shamseldin poured in 24 points including four treys, and Clifton Lyerly contributed 15 of his own with 6 rebounds.
The Lakers mostly trailed in the contest, but found their ways to stay in it throughout the game. Trailing 30-24 with 2:30 left in the first half, the Lakers knotted it up 30-30 with 34 seconds to go.
Shamseldin negated the Lakers run by nailing a three with 8 seconds left, and then a layup plus the foul before the buzzer. Giving the Golden Eagles a 36-30 lead at the half.
Lakers Freshman Brandon Gartland had perhaps his biggest half as a Laker with three critical three-pointers in the second-half as the Lakers were trailing.
Matthew Smith for Brockport nailed a three to give the Golden Eagles their largest lead of 69-58 with six minutes left in the game.
Schupp answered Smith’s three by putting together a show, scoring nine points in just over two minutes, including a four-point play. His hot-streak had the Lakers only trailing 74-72 with a little over three minutes remaining.
It was the reoccurring script from there, the Lakers found themselves in yet another tight battle in the closing stretch of the game.
Trailing just 77-75, the Lakers had the ball in their possession, and gave it to the hot-hand Schupp.
Schupp made his move and attempted a three, but Brockport’s Devonn Gavin made a tremendous defensive play with a block on Schupp with 47 seconds left.
Gavin proceeded to miss a free throw being in the one and one, giving the Lakers another chance still trailing 77-75.
Sortino drove towards the basket this time and was called for a charge on the collision towards the basket with 32 seconds left. A crucial and close call that the Lakers coaching staff did not agree with.
The Lakers decided to hold off on fouling right away and let 18 seconds wind off before fouling Gavin and sending him to the line.
Gavin went 1-2 from the line to make it a 78-75 lead, giving the Lakers yet another chance to tie the game up.
14 seconds remained off the missed free throw, and Sortino had the ball in his hands once again. His three-point attempt with five seconds left didn’t go through, ending the Lakers chances to send it into overtime.
Lyerly’s free throws wrapped it up for the Golden Eagles for their 80-75 revenge victory.
The Lakers played hard once again on the road despite clinching the No. 1 seed already last night. Today’s game wasn’t meaningless, but they still come out of this weekend reaching their goal of clinching home-court advantage for next weekend.
The official 2017 SUNYAC playoff seeds goes as follows:
- Oswego State
- College of Brockport
- SUNY Oneonta
- SUNY Cortland
- Buffalo State
- SUNY Geneseo
The Lakers will face whoever is the lowest seed alive after Tuesday night’s quarterfinal matchups. Oneonta will host Geneseo on Tuesday night, and Cortland will host Buffalo State.
SUNYAC’s are proven once again how competitive they are as a conference, each team No. 1 through No. 6 can play with each other, and have a real shot at the SUNYAC title.
Both quarterfinal games will tip-off at 7:00pm Tuesday night, the Lakers shall wait to see who their playing as they’ll have a big week of practice and preparation ahead of them.
