#18 Men’s Basketball Edges Washington (Mo.) University
Stats
Feb. 3 - (PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – The Carnegie Mellon men’s basketball team faced off against UAA foe Washington (Mo.) University for the second time in less than a week and again came out victorious, this time with a 79-72 victory on Friday, February 3 at Skibo Gymnasium. The Tartans improve their record to 16-3 overall and 6-2 in the UAA to maintain their first place standing. The Bears fall to 13-6 overall and drop one game behind the Tartans, at 5-3 in the UAA.
With the victory, Head Coach Tony Wingen surpasses F.M. Cratsley (1949-1966) on Carnegie Mellon’s all-time wins list. Wingen now has 174 wins during his 16 years at the helm for the Tartans.
The Tartans started out cold from the floor and did not take their first lead until the 7:28 mark when they received a spark off the bench. Junior Brad Matta (White Oak, Pa./Serra Catholic) scored off a pass from fellow reserve Greg Gonzalez (Southlake, Texas/Carroll) to put the Tartans up 20-19. The Tartans would score again to go up 22-21 but the Bears reeled off ten unanswered points over four minutes to pull ahead 31-22. Carnegie Mellon narrowed the margin with 42 seconds left when sophomore Geoff Kozak (Huntingdon, Pa.) stole the ball at mid-court and then stopped and popped a three-pointer to make it 36-30 in favor of the Bears going into halftime.
Senior A.J. Straub (St. Mary’s, Pa./Elk County Catholic) extended his streak of hitting a three-pointer to 22 games when he connected from downtown to cut the Bears lead to 36-35. The Tartans took their first lead of the second half with 9:17 to go when Straub lobbed a pass to senior forward Clayton Barlow-Wilcox (Brookline, Mass.) who laid it in to put the Tartans up 55-53. The Tartans maintained their lead the rest of the way, although Washington University didn’t let the Tartan faithful relax until the final buzzer sounded.
A three-pointer by Bears guard Scott Stone cut the Tartan lead to 72-68 with 1:09 left, and then another three-pointer by Stone with 47 seconds left brought Washington to within three at 75-72. After a timeout, the Carnegie Mellon inbounds pass was stolen by Bears guard Nate Griffin who passed it out to Danny O’Boyle who had a wide open three-point shot. Everyone in the arena held their breath as the ball traveled through the air, only to hit off the side of the rim, off the backboard and into Straub’s hands. Straub was fouled and hit both of his free throws to seal the victory with 15 seconds left. A dunk as time expired by senior Nate Maurer (Pittsburgh, Pa./Linsly School) capped off the scoring.
Barlow-Wilcox paved the way for the Tartans with a team-high 21 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. This was his second consecutive double-double and eighth of the season. Maurer added 17 points and eight rebounds in the win. Washington University forward Troy Ruths led all scorers with 22 points, of which 18 came in the first half of play.
The Tartan bench logged some solid minutes with Matta scoring nine and Gonzalez reeling in seven rebounds. Straub finished with 11 points and Kozak added 10 points along with an impressive six assists to zero turnovers on the night. The Tartans followed up a poor shooting first half in which they shot 33.3% to hit 57.1% of their shots in the second stanza to finish at a 43.8% clip for the game. The Bears were slightly better at 47.5% on the night, but the Tartans held a 42-36 rebounding advantage including a 13-8 edge on the offensive glass.
The Carnegie Mellon men’s basketball team will next be in action on Sunday, February 5 when they host the University of Chicago Maroons in what is scheduled to be a 1:00 p.m. start.
