Malone 81, Canton 78, OT
In the game of the year in Section X and an instant overtime classic, the Canton Golden Bears fell to a skidding Malone team in overtime in a hard fought, high scoring battle. As a player in the game, the loss was heartbreaking, but as a fan of basketball, the game was electrifying with a rapid pace and highlight worthy plays all over the place. Coming into the game, Canton had won its last two against subpar opponents in back to back blowouts, and Malone came in after losing three straight; two to top seed in the central Ogdensburg and one in overtime against Massena. The results this year in the central division display the parody that the powerhouses of the section haven’t seen in a long time. The last game between the two at Malone was also a thrilling, high scoring game that came down to the last play even though the Bears had 27 turnovers.
The first quarter was the teams feeling each other out, finding out what works on offense and what didn’t. Malone’s defense is hallmarked by aggressive switching on all screens, where the Bears double ball screens. This doubling deterred the Huskies from running consistent ball screen plays, as only 1 was set in the first half of the game, and the Bears 5 out screen away offense was rendered significantly more ineffective because of the chemistry on the defensive end switching the screens. No big significant plays were made in the first quarter, but we saw a lot of the same thing we saw a month ago in Malone: offense. 20-15 was the final score after one as 2 unlikely sources drilled a three for the Huskies when Ryan Hesseltine and Lukas Reyome each hit one while labeled as drivers. Zadok Roiger had 7 first quarter points for the Bears on 5-7 from the free throw line as Malone was clobbering him on every single drive to the basket, some were called, and even on 7 free throws, some were not.
The Second quarter was where the defenses really settled down and prevented points. Roiger was still hammered on every play he touched the ball, but foul fatigue started to come into play. He had 6 on three twos in the quarter, and Daniel O’Neill had a 2, a 3, and a really tough call that could’ve gone either way for a charge as he made the difficult basket, but unfortunately a turnover goes in the book for him. Malone’s offense is the most balanced in the section, with 6 separate players scoring in the second quarter alone, none with more than a field goal. A lot of these were easy buckets at the rim as the Bears consistently over helped on drives, and a back cut was all the Huskies needed to put two on the board. As the seconds ticked down until halftime, Roiger made an easy layup, but after that, the Bears struggled to find their match ups and a 40 foot bomb from Dylan Barse put the Huskies up seven going into halftime 33-26. Only 3 Bears scored in the first half, as Will Andes had 5, O’Neill 8 and Roiger 13. Simultaneously, the Huskies had 8 scorers in the first half, led by Cam Keating with 10.
The third quarter opened very well for the Bears as a 6-0 spurt happened in the span of a minute with four straight turnovers for the Huskies which led to 3 easy layups. The Huskies set next to no ball screens in the first half, and in the first 4 possessions of the second, they set two, and each of the led to a turnover and an open layup, one of which a slick behind the back dish from Andes to Roiger as Andes was playing with unwavering confidence. The Huskies weathered the storm and they kept their 1-2 possession lead that they had for most of the first half, but another live ball turnover led to an outlet pass to Roiger, who had a monster two hand jam over Hesseltine of the Huskies to cut the lead to three. The Huskies just kept getting wide open back cut layups as they forced help by getting paint touches so they stayed poised. When they weren’t turning the ball over, they were putting points up with ease. Ciaran O’Brien struggled in the first half, but finally put a jump hook in on the out of bounds play that gave Malone problems in the first match up. At the end of the third, O’Brien had a three, but more confusion at the other end gave Hesseltine an and-one layup where he missed the free throw to keep the score at 48-45 Huskies.
At the start of the 4th, Andes went on another reign of terror with 3 straight possessions of steals and layups to go on a 6-0 run by himself in the span of a minute that Roiger added on to with another bucket of his own to make the score 53-48. Brad Poupore of Malone finally had his first basket of the game after a 0 point 5 turnover performance leading up to the fourth quarter on a stick back, and that started the onslaught where he scored 11 within 6 minutes and ended the game with 17 in just the fourth quarter and overtime. O’Brien matched that though, as he had 9 straight for the Bears despite the offensive threat that Malone posed, the closeouts weren’t quick enough and the score was 62-60 with a little over 2 minutes left. Roiger added a 2 to extend the lead to 4. Keating then answered with a big triple off of an off ball screen to cut the lead to 1. The Bears drew up a play with about a minute left for Roiger to go downhill with his right with O’Brien as a pitch out in the corner. Roiger kicked it out and O’Brien missed the three, but Daniel Richardson came in to collect the rebound. The play was set up again but this time Roiger flipped it up through a foul that wasn’t called and made one of the more difficult shots I’ve seen in Section X this year to extend the lead to three with 37 seconds remaining. The Huskies had a great opportunity at the rim on the next possession, but O’Brien came in to foul Keating and put him at the line where he went 1/2, Bears basketball. Will Andes caught the ball and was immediately fouled with 10.4 seconds remaining. He went to the line and calmly knocked down the first, then Coach Tim Lamay called a timeout to ice him and go through situations with his team. Andes went to the line one more time to effectively seal the game and air balled it giving the Huskies possession with a stopped clock down three with ten seconds. With 2 fouls to give, the Bears were meant to foul, and they did once, but after that a handoff play to get Poupore moving down the floor led to a pump fake that got Andes in the air, and he drained a three to tie the game and send it to overtime.
In overtime, Malone outdueled the Bears by shooting layups while the Bears took significantly more difficult shots; part of the reason why the Huskies had 9 scorers and the Bears just had 4, and Poupore had 6 in the OT period to power the Huskies out of their 3 game skid. Roiger ended the game with 33 points 6 rebounds and 5 assists on 12/19 from the field and 9/12 from the line. O’Brien followed that up with 19 on 7/11 from the field and 5/9 from three. Andes had 16 points 6 assists and 7 steals on 7/13 from the field and O’Neill had 10 points 4 rebounds 3 assists and 4 steals. Roiger is averaging 21 points 10 rebounds and 3 assists per game and is virtually a lock for 1st team all northern. O’Brien is averaging 10.8 and 4.7 rebounds and Andes averages 10.6 points and 2.7 steals. The Bears have a rivalry stretch coming up with Senior Night against Potsdam on 2/11 and the last regular season game @OFA on the 13th.