The Simon Fraser University men’s basketball team fell 112-84 to Central Washington last Saturday night in a Valentine’s Day clash in the West Gym.
It was also the Clan’s annual Senior’s Night, honouring the careers of Simon Fraser’s three graduating seniors, Sango Niang, Justin Cole and Daniel Deflorimonte.
The opening portion of the game saw the two teams trade leads several times, before Central Washington was able to calm the play down and take control.
“It was a clunker of a game,” said head coach James Blake in a Clan press release. “It didn’t seem like anything we could do would work. We were sloppy offensively and never found a good flow on the attack.”
Central Washington controlled the pace throughout the second half, effectively shutting down the Clan and outscoring the home side 47-37 in the period.
Ultimately the Clan were not able to recover from their slow first half, dropping to 5-10 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play.
“I think the emotions of senior night and the emotions of the last home game affected us,” Blake added. “Central was a hungry team looking to improve on where they were going to finish in the standings and we didn’t do a good job of containing them.
The Clan’s three seniors have three final games of their collegiate careers remaining, all on the road, in the next two weeks.
Earlier in the week, SFU knocked off Northwest Nazarene 92-88.
Roderick Evans-Taylor had 23 points and six steals in the match, while Niang went four-for-seven from three-point range, scoring 22 points on the night for SFU.
It wasn’t smooth sailing until the end however, as the Crusaders fought their way back, capitalizing on a pair of Clan turnovers near the nine-minute mark, forcing a series of tie-scores.
At 88-up, an Alex Birketoft technical foul sent Niang to the free-throw line again and the captain made no mistake, giving the Clan a much needed two-point advantage with 33 seconds remaining in the game.
The Crusaders took a pair of fouls to end the game as Niang and Evans-Taylor each put one home from the charity stripe to secure the Clan’s 92-88 victory.
“The coaching staff noticed a few weeks ago that the team’s mentality was all about the playoffs,” Blake finished. “The guys were playing tight and were feeling the pressure so, as a team, we took a different approach to these last few games and are leaving it all out there.”
For the first time in program history the Clan are in contention for a playoff position as the sixth and final spot will come down to Simon Fraser and Western Washington.
