By Andrew Parente, News Staff
When the men’s basketball team traveled to Drexel last season, it was senior guard Baptiste Bataille who hit a shot at the buzzer to give the Huskies the win.
Saturday afternoon, NU was faced with a similar situation, down by two with the ball for the final possession.
This time, the Huskies were not as fortunate as senior guard Matt Janning couldn’t get a runner to fall and the Dragons came away with a 49-47 win.
The loss drops Northeastern to 2-4 on the season and 0-1 in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). Drexel improves to 4-5, 1-0 in the CAA.
‘I thought it was a hard fought basketball game this afternoon,’ said head coach Bill Coen. ‘We expected nothing less in a game that opened up CAA play for both teams.’
Close games have been a continuing trend for the Huskies as every game has been decided by less than six points.
‘This has been a replaying loop,’ Coen said. ‘Every game this season has come down to this. We recently loss on a quick out-of-bounds play to Providence, we were fortunate enough to hit a buzzer beater against Wright State, so all our games are coming down to this kind of situation.’
Neither team could pull away as the biggest lead for both teams was six points. There were also seven lead changes.
‘Both teams competed extremely hard,’ Coen said. ‘It came down to Drexel making a few more winning plays than we did.’
Drexel led by five, 47-42, with two minutes to play when Janning nailed a 3-pointer to pull the Huskies back within two.
Janning led all scorers in the game with 17 points.
Dragons forward Evan Neisler then converted on a pair of free throws to up the lead to four.
Janning was fouled on NU’s next possession and hit two free throws of his own to make it a 49-47 game. The Huskies defense then forced a turnover to give them the final possession.
Both teams proved why they were two of the better defensive teams in the conference last year as they combined for 29 turnovers.
Northeastern shot 43 percent from the field, while Drexel shot 44 percent.
Neither team was efficient from 3-point territory as the Huskies went just 2-of-3 from behind the arc while the Dragons were just 1-of-8.
‘I think you have to give credit to Drexel’s defense,’ Coen said of the lack of 3-pointers. ‘They play great man-to-man defense, they are very aggressive. We started out having an advantage underneath the basket, and I thought we established ourselves fairly well down there and Drexel did a great job of taking away our perimeter game.’
The Huskies also struggled from the free-throw line, making just 11-of-17 shots from the stripe.
In addition to Janning, the only other Husky player in double figures was fellow senior forward Nkem Ojougboh, who had 10 points.
Ojougboh pulled down six rebounds and had a pair of blocks.
Dragons forward Samme Givens led his team in scoring, coming off the bench to contribute 16 points.
Northeastern will look to bounce back when it travels to Kingston, R.I., to battle Rhode Island tonight at 7 p.m. The teams are meeting for the third straight year ‘- the Rams won the previous two matches.
After a break for finals, the Huskies will then travel west to play in the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii, followed by the Cable Car Classic in Santa Clara, Calif.
The team will play a total of five games on the west coast swing before returning home on Jan. 2 to play host to CAA-foe James Madison at 4 p.m. in Matthews Arena.
