Canton, NY – It’s never pretty, but the Clarkson University Men’s Basketball team continued on its winning roll on Saturday afternoon, earning the Liberty League’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with a 58-53 victory over Hamilton College, their first ever trip to the national championship tournament.
Effective is a better word than ugly, and the Knights won with effective play all weekend, holding their opponents to just 101 points with stiff defense and timely inside-out play. Clarkson improved to 11-16 overall while Hamilton dropped to 17-9. As soon as information regarding Clarkson’s opponent in the NCAAs is available, all information will be made clear on the Clarkson Athletic Website.
It didn’t always appear as if the Knights would be two-stepping in the big dance that is the NCAA tournament. The Continentals started off Saturday’s championship game the same way they did the last time they competed against Clarkson, by putting a lot of pressure on the guards and taking the ball to the basket. The process worked again as Hamilton jumped out to a 13-4 lead in the first eight minutes as Hamilton held the Knights to very few second chances, while coming through with several tip-ins on the offensive glass. The Knights climbed back into the game, trading three’s for Hamilton’s lay ups, thanks to long-range shots from Brian Salanger (Syracuse, NY) and James Evans (Hamburg, NY). A 9-2 run by Hamilton pushed the game back to a double-digit lead for the Continentals, but free throws from Elson Pickering (Brooklyn, NY) and a 3-pointer in the waning seconds from Evans brought the Knights back to within four, 27-23, at the half.
Salanger, Pickering, and Evans each scored six points for Clarkson, while Jay Simpson led Hamilton with nine points. Harlee Wood also chipped in eight points for the Continentals.
Hamilton’s inside play netted them an eight point lead, 39-31, midway through the second half, but an 11-0 run by Clarkson, capped off by a Brandon Linton mid-range jumper with 7:53 to go, gave the Knights a 42-39 lead. The Continentals tied the game 42-42 just 20 seconds later, but Clarkson’s defense continued to buckle down on every stop and employed the same slow-down effort that proved highly effective against St. Lawrence on Friday. Up just two, Pickering nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Clarkson a five-point advantage late. With a few free throws, Clarkson found itself up by eight, but Hamilton wouldn’t go away, working hard on the offensive end for two tip-ins in a 20-second span with just a minute to go. At the 42-second mark, Brandon Linton (Queens, NY) was fouled trying to break a full court press and made both of his free throws to push the Clarkson advantage to five points again. A Jay Simpson lay up brought the Clarkson lead back down to three with 15 seconds to go, but a James Evans lay up after a full court baseball pass pushed the lead back to five. A pair of free throws from Ramunas Rozgys brought it back to three, but again the Knights beat the Hamilton press with a long pass to Evans, who was fouled with 5.6 seconds remaining. He buried both, and a desperation three-pointer was missed, giving the Knights the win.
Pickering led all scorers with 17 points, including a 3-pointer from the top of the key that proved to be a clutch shot late in the game, and added in five rebounds. Evans had his best game of the season, scoring 13 points in 22 minutes, going 4-for-6 from the floor, with a 3-for-4 effort from behind the 3-point line. Linton also scored nine points, shooting 7-for-8 from the free throw line.
The Knights shot just 29.2 percent in the first half (7-for-24), but responded with a 57.9 percent ratio (11-for-19) in the second 20 minutes. The Continentals went the other way, shooting 42.3 percent (11-for-26) in the first and following it up with a 33.3 percent (11-for-33 effort) in the second. Hamilton also was only 2-for-20 from behind the 3-point arc.
Saturday's win also proved that the Clarkson staff deserved its Liberty League Coaching Staff of the Year accolades, as head coach Adam Stockwell and assistants Kyle Hejmowski and James Aschmann outdueled the top two seeds in the conference, holding both teams to season-lows offensively.
