MEDFORD, MA (January 14, 2023) -- Senior guard
Tyler Aronson hit two late free throws to make it a three-point game with eight seconds left, and a tying three-pointer at the buzzer wouldn't fall for Hamilton College as the Tufts University men's basketball team outlasted a solid Hamilton squad 57-54 in New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) play from Cousens Gymnasium Saturday.
The win for the Jumbos (12-3, 2-1 NESCAC) was their third straight, moving to 7-1 at home this year with their only loss coming to current No. 1 team in the d3hoops.com Top 25 Poll Saint Joesph's (CT). The home team has also now won the last seven meetings between these two teams, as the Continentals fell to 10-7 overall and 2-2 in the NESCAC.
The contest was nip-and-tuck through the first 10 minutes of the contest, as Tufts held a 11-9 lead but went on a 8-0 run to take a 10-point edge after a lay-up from sophomore
Bobby Stewart. Hamilton would close the gap down to four points in a pair of occasions, as the Jumbos took a seven-point lead into the halftime intermission.
Hamilton would make some defensive changes in the early going of the second half, and that helped the Continentals come back to take the lead with 12:19 to go on a score from Liam Regan to make it 44-43. With the score deadlocked at 46 with eight minutes to play, first-year
James Morakis put Tufts up one and senior
Dylan Thoerner added a dunk in transition to push the Jumbos edge up to three at 49-46.
Tufts made it a two-possession game with 90 seconds to play, as senior
Theo Henry hit a running floater in the paint to make it 53-49. Hamilton answered right back thanks to a jumper from Hank Morgan, but two free throws by Aronson with 18 seconds left made it a four-point edge for Tufts. The Continentals wouldn't go away, as Eric Anderson drilled a three-pointer with nine seconds left to make it a one-point game at 55-54.
Aronson would be fouled on the next possession and with Tufts in the one-and-one bonus, and he calmly made both to force Hamilton to hit a three to keep the game going. Anderson got a good look from the top of the key with a second left, but it rattled out and the Jumbos secured the win.
Aronson finished two points shy of his season-high, as he posted 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting, making two of his six shots from behind the arc. Aronson added five rebounds and four steals as well, while Thoerner recorded 12 points as well. Sophomore
Trumann Gettings finished with 10 points and five rebounds, and Henry came off the bench to record six points. Tufts shot 33.9 percent on the day, connected on only 18.2 percent from three-point land, but turned the ball over only seven times which was a season-low. On the other hand, Tufts led the points off turnover battle 19-12 as it took advantage of 16 miscues from the Continentals.
Hamilton was paced by the game-high 22 points from Anderson, as he tallied seven rebounds as well. Teja Singh added nine points, and Conner Rood just missed a double-double with eight points and 10 rebounds. Patrick Mogan pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds as well for the Continentals, who were 19-of-54 (35.2 percent) from the field in the loss.
Tufts will finish a busy stretch of four games in seven days Monday afternoon, taking on the University of Maine-Presque Isle at 2 p.m. on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Cousens Gymnasium in the penultimate non-conference contest of the 2022-23 season.
--JUMBOS--
