Loyola senior Michael Tuck led all scorers with a game-high 20 points to help lead the visiting Greyhounds to a 74-62 win over Canisius College in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference action Sunday afternoon in the Koessler Athletic Center. The win improves Loyola to 13-10 overall and 8-3 in the MAAC, while the Golden Griffins slipped to 4-18 overall and 2-10 in league action.
Canisius freshman Tomas Vazquez-Simmons (pictured) recorded his second double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds, while fellow freshmen Elton Frazier and Greg Logins added 14 and 13 points, respectively. As a team, Canisius shot 33.3 percent (19-for-57) from the floor and 33.3 percent (7-for-21) from 3-point land just two days after hitting a season-high 61.7 percent of its shots from the field.
“I thought we played very hard today and our pressure kept them from getting their offensive flow going,” Canisius head coach Tom Parrotta said. “We did a good job of following the game plan and had open looks, but for as good as we shot Friday night, that's the kind of struggles we had this afternoon.”
Loyola shot 53.6 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from 3-point range in the game's first 20 minutes to take a 37-30 lead into the locker room at the break. The Greyhounds' lead hovered around 10 points for most of the second stanza before Canisius made a push at the lead and trailed 53-45 with 10:07 left on the clock after Vazquez-Simmons grabbed on offensive rebounds and laid one off the glass. But on the ensuing possession, Loyola guard Brett Harvey hit Gerald Brown with a long pass, and the senior guard pulled up and nailed a 3-pointer from 24 feet to push Loyola's hold back to 11 at 56-45 with 9:56 left in regulation time.
Down the stretch, Canisius battled to get within five points at 62-57 with 4:39 left on the clock following a 3-point field goal by Frazier, but Loyola used its fast-break offense once again as Brown took the in-bounds pass and hit Tuck as he ran the floor. The Toronto, Ont., native laid the ball off the backboard and into the hoop to give the Hounds a 66-57 lead with 3:36 to play. Frazier was credited with a tip-in with 1:45 left on the clock to cut Loyola's lead to 66-62, but Brown and Marquis Sullivan closed out the game by hitting six-straight free throws to seal the win, Loyola's third-straight victory over Canisius.
Brown had 18 points for Loyola and Sullivan finished the game with 15 points. The junior guard broke the Loyola school record for career 3-pointers at 187, passing former Greyhound and Buffalo native Jason Rowe. The Griffs out rebounded Loyola by a 40-30 count, with 23 of those boards coming off the offensive glass, led by Vazquez-Simmons' game-high 10 boards.
Canisius will return to action Feb. 8, when the team travels to Iona. Tip-off in New Rochelle, N.Y., is set for 7:30 p.m.
Game Notes: Canisius forced 17 turnovers in the game and ended up holding an 18-15 advantage on second chance points... Bob Bevilacqua matched a career high with four assists and also posted a career best four steals for Canisius... Vazquez-Simmons had three blocks for Canisius, giving him 55 on the year which ranks second in school history for blocked shots in a season... The crowd of 1,015 was the fourth largest single-game home attendance number of the season.
