Setters Drop Home Opener to Hot-Shooting Le Moyne
Following a pair of victories at the Nyack Tip-Off Tournament to start the season, the Pace University men’s basketball team might still have been on cloud nine as it took the court for its home opener last Wednesday evening.
Unfortunately for the Setters, Le Moyne College brought them back down to earth in a hurry.
The visiting Dolphins made seven 3-pointers and held Pace to a paltry 25 percent shooting from the field as they opened up a 24-point halftime lead from which the Setters never recovered. Le Moyne cruised to a 73-56 victory in the Northeast-10 Conference opener for both teams at the Goldstein Fitness Center.
“It’s disappointing,” said Setters coach Jim Harter afterwards. “They just came out and outworked us, outran us and just totally outplayed us.”
A 26-8 Dolphin burst over an eight-minute span in the first half, sparked by four 3-pointers from sophomore guard Nate Gause off the bench, left Pace overwhelmed and playing from far behind the rest of the night. Le Moyne built a 47-23 lead at the half and the Setters never got closer than 13 points the rest of the way.
“It didn’t feel like we could make a run at any point,” said Harter. “It just didn’t feel good at any point where we made any kind of run. I don’t think we had any kind of 10-to-2 run or anything the whole game, so it was just an uphill battle the whole way.”
It became an uphill battle shortly after the Setters’ Jonathan Merceus connected on a 15-foot jumper to tie the game at 9-9. Brian Zapisek answered with a bucket for the Dolphins 25 seconds later, giving Le Moyne the lead for good. Soon Gause, a former Section 1 high school star, began finding the range from beyond the 3-point arc. He made all four of his attempts, finishing the half with 14 points in just eight minutes of action.
While Gause was helping break the game open from the perimeter, Jim Janson, the Dolphins’ 6-foot-10 junior center, was having his way inside, finishing the half with 12 points on 6-for-6 shooting that included three authoritative dunks.
“He’s lost some weight and he moves around a little bit better,” said Harter about Janson, who had the Dolphins’ last four baskets of the half. “I thought he really outplayed our big guys and hurt us around the paint.”
The Setters only managed to make nine of their 36 shots in the opening half with Merceus and Keon Williams, who each had a 25-point game at the Nyack tourney, combining to shoot just 3-for-15. Williams did finish with a game-high 10 rebounds, but he only played four minutes after halftime and wound up 2-for-10 from the field. Merceus began the game with a team-leading 19.5 scoring average, but ended up with just eight points against Le Moyne as he missed 12 of his 16 shots.
“I thought we just got outran,” said Harter of the huge deficit his team faced at intermission. “They were beating us so badly in transition. We’ve been a pretty good running team so far this year, so I was disappointed in that. And then our offensive execution was very poor. We panicked, rushed and didn’t run our offense very well and it just multiplied into a big deficit.”
Le Moyne had made seven of its 12 3-point shots in the first half and didn’t cool off in the second half. Even though Gause never made another basket after halftime, the Dolphins went 5-for-7 from beyond the arc as they prevented Pace from getting closer than 17 points until there were under three minutes remaining.
A layup by Denzel Primus-Devonish, who led Pace with 16 points, moved the Setters within 59-41 with 11 minutes remaining. After two free throws by Janson, Merceus scored on a baseline jumper to get the Setters back within 18 points. But a 3-pointer by Zapisek from the top of the key and another one later on by Connor Mahoney made certain the Setters would never really get back in the game despite eight late points from freshman Jaylen Mann, who finished with 11 off the bench.
“Hopefully, it’s a game we can learn from,” said Harter, now in his 15th season. “They were the hungrier, better team tonight and we weren’t at our best. I don’t know quite why and we’ve just got to find a way to learn from our mistakes in this and get better. It’s a long season. I think we have good kids that have character, so I expect us to bounce back and rebound well from it.”
The Setters will try to get back on track tonight (Tuesday) when they host American International at 7:30. They also have a game at Assumption on Sunday afternoon and Harter can only hope the loss to Le Moyne will be a distant memory by then.
“I don’t know for sure,” he said, “but I think our guys thought they were a little better than they were off of a 2-and-0 start and all that. We’re not good enough to take anything for granted. Our league’s so tough and competitive. You’ve gotta work and be hungry and execute and do the right things, and tonight we just didn’t have it.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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