Staten Island, N.Y.— The John Jay men’s basketball team avenged a regular season loss to the College of Staten Island (CSI), and did it when it counted most, as the Bloodhounds defeated the Dolphins, 63-59, in the quarterfinal round of the City University of New York Athletic Conference / Con Edison men’s basketball tournament at CSI’s Sports and Recreation Complex on Saturday.
With the win the Bloodhounds have advanced into the semifinal round and will play New York City Tech on Tue. Feb. 19 at the City College of New York at 7:30 p.m.
Neither team led by more than six the entire contest and five in the first half, and the host Dolphins led by that amount midway through the first half when CSI led 17-12 with just under 10 minutes gone by.
The Dolphins still led by five and had a 19-14 lead moments later. But John Jay went on a 9-2 run to erase the deficit and grab a two point lead (23-21) capped on a jumper by Gary Brady (Bronx, NY / Martin Luther King) with 6:38 to play. Brady scored nine points in the contest while shooting 4-for-5 from the floor, including 4-for-4 in the first half.
“We rose to the occasion today. CSI is a great team and we have to play great to beat a team like them,” said John Jay head coach Charles Jackson. “And we did that. We executed and played good enough to win, and sometimes that’s enough.”
Neither team gave way through the final six and a half minutes as the game saw five ties through that portion of the affair and neither team led by more than two. Fittingly the first 20 minutes saw eight ties before the Bloodhounds went into halftime up 34-32 behind Chris Jaeger (Hicksville, NY / Hicksville) who had 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting to go along with six rebounds and four steals.
The deep Bloodhounds dominated CSI in points off the bench, holding a 38-5 advantage for the contest, including a 28-5 margin in the first half.
Both teams picked up where they left off in the second half going nip and tuck through the early stages of the second stanza.
CSI reclaimed the lead early in the second half and led by as much as three (43-40) with 15:14 to go. But the Bloodhounds went on a 9-0 run to take a 49-43 lead with 9:54 to play on a lay-up by Hakeem Kased (Brooklyn, NY / Franklin D. Roosevelt), who led all scorers with 23 points and had a team-high nine rebounds.
The run changed the game and it gave the Bloodhounds the lead for good, but CSI did not go away either.
John Jay built the lead to as much as seven with 6:07 to play on another Kased lay-up, who had 17 of his game-high 23 in the second half as John Jay outscored CSI 36-22 in points in the paint, including a 20-8 advantage in the second half.
The Dolphins used a 6-1 run to cut the deficit to two (55-53) with 4:09 to play.
But the two teams traded baskets the next several minutes all the way into the final minute of play.
The Bloodhounds led by as much as four in the final three plus minutes, but CSI got no closer than two.
John Jay still hung on to a two point lead with 1:04 to play, but neither team can put the ball in the basket on the next several possessions.
Still up by two (61-59) the Bloodhounds had a chance to go up by four, but missed the front end of a one and one. But after another CSI miss, who shot 42 percent from the floor, including an 0-for-12 performance from CUNYAC first team All-Star Robert Mesjasz, Kased went two-for-two from the line with five seconds remaining to ice the game.
“Since we played them late in the season he was still fresh in our minds,” Jackson said of Mesjasz, who had 27 points and 11 rebounds during their regular season encounter on Feb. 6. “Since we are a deep team we have a variety of guys we can throw on them.”
