By Christopher Boulay
The CCSU men’s basketball team survived an early scare from the winless Bryant Bulldogs, to get their fourth-straight win 61-48, in front of 2,279 at Detrick Gymnasium on Saturday.
Junior Shemik Thompson scored 24 points to lead the Blue Devils (9-14, 6-6). Markeys Deans added 12 points and eight rebounds and Joe Seymore scored 10 points in the win.
“Shemik carried us once again, and that was the real big key,” Seymore said. “Fifteen points in the second half is phenomenal, especially in this type of game, a league game. We were struggling a little bit and we needed it to pull us through.”
The win gives CCSU two wins over the Bulldogs this season, and the second in a week. CCSU won in Smithfield, R.I. 61-34 Thursday night.
“They have nothing to lose – 0-23, 0-24, I mean, what’s the difference? But we have a whole lot of things to lose,” Coach Howie Dickenman said. “We had a three-game win streak that we had to work hard for and we took a step a forward, but we would have taken a step backward if we lost today.”
CCSU had a very slow start, trailing Bryant 24-19 at the half, which was the second lowest point total at halftime this season. The Blue Devils shot an abysmal 29 percent from the field in the first half, and the team did not have their first lead until a three pointer by Seymore to make it 19-18 with 4:19 left before halftime.
Seymore blamed the slow start in the first half to the team’s lack of poise after beating Bryant handily Thursday.
“We just [weren't] focused,” Seymore said. “I think that we did actually take [Bryant] for granted in the first half. They jumped out at us.”
Joe Efese scored two of his eight points with 15:45 left in the second half, to give the Blue Devils the lead 25-24, and CCSU would not trail for the rest of the game. This was part of a 10-2 run for the home team to open the second half and help propel the Blue Devils to a much stronger second half.
“I just think we were a little bit out of sync today. We weren’t totally there. We didn’t play hard for 40 minutes,” Seymore said. “When you do that, you get an up and down performance like we showed today.”
Vlad Kondratyev led the Bulldogs (0-24, 0-12) with 14 points. Raphael Jordan added 12 points in a losing effort.
“I cautioned the players yesterday in practice, last night at the meeting and in pregame, that Bryant is gonna win a game or two this year. We wanted to make sure that it’s not Central Connecticut,” Dickenman said. “Well, I am not so sure that our players believed me. We were sleepwalking in the first half. Bryant outhustled us and outplayed us.”
Bryant is one of only two winless teams in Division I, and also have the worst record in Division I. Alcorn State, of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, is the other winless team, with a record of 0-23.
“It’s hard to realize that they haven’t won any games by the amount of effort that they put in,” Dickenman said.
CCSU will host Robert Morris Thursday night at 8 p.m. The game will be televised on Cox Sports TV. The Blue Devils will have another home game Saturday, against St. Francis (P.A.) at 1 p.m.
