Syracuse, N.Y. – Redshirt freshman guard Christian Davis (Denver, Colo./Mullen/New Hampton School) made four foul shots in the final 12.2 seconds to lead the Le Moyne College men's basketball team to a 79-75 victory over the University of New Haven in the Northeast-10 Conference opener on Saturday afternoon at Ted Grant Court.

"Really good win. Anytime you can go 1-0 in conference play - that's huge," said head coach Nate Champion '14. "Beating a team like New Haven, which has a ton of experience and a lot of guys coming back from two years ago, just the way they have built their team, obviously some guys on there that can really play and they showed that tonight. I thought it was really good just to see our guys respond and really come back after they threw punches, it seemed like we just threw them right back and that was something that we talked about in practice. We used the word 'grimy'. Grimy - a little nastiness, a little toughness, and that's just kind of what we did today. And I thought it was nice just to see us guard some guys, but a great overall team win and really looking forward to Tuesday."

Davis finished the contest with 17 points, including 11 in the second half, three rebounds and a pair of blocks. Junior forward Xavier Wilson (Spring Valley, N.Y./Archbishop Stepinac/The Hotchkiss School/Central Connecticut State) led all scorers in the game with a career-high 21 points, including 12 in the first half on 5-of-5 shooting from the field, while adding six rebounds. Senior forward Nicholas Johnson (Silver Spring, Md./John F. Kennedy/Frostburg St./Montgomery College) was the third Dolphin in double figures with 11 points, including seven in the first half.

Quashawn Lane led the Chargers in the loss with 20 points, 16 of which came in the second half, while adding eight assists and seven rebounds. Devontrey Thomas scored nine of his 14 points in the second half, while adding eight rebounds. Victor Olawoye turned in 11 points and six rebounds.

The Dolphins jumped out of the gates with the first 10 points over the opening four and one-half minutes. Wilson had the first four points, third-year sophomore guard Jeremiah Washington (Chicago, Ill./Bogan/Ferris State) drained a three-pointer, senior guard Nino Hernandez (Gardner, Mass./The Winchendon School/Bryant) converted a jumper in the paint and Wilson capped the streak with a free throw.

The Chargers used a 7-2 spurt to cut their deficit in half, but Le Moyne answered with a 10-4 jaunt to take its largest lead of the game at 22-11 with 10:44 left in the half. Davis drilled a three-pointer, Wilson made a jumper and then Johnson scored five points over three possessions.

Olawoye answered with five points and Sean Smith followed a Le Moyne basket with a three-pointer to get the Chargers within 24-19 with 8:04 to go.

After the teams traded baskets over the next two minutes, Derrick Rowland made a jumper and Nick Crocker connected on a three-pointer to pull the Chargers within three for the first time with 5:37 left in the half.

The teams then went back and forth the remainder of the half as Le Moyne's lead fluctuated between two and five points before Johnson made a jumper in the paint to give the Dolphins a 40-36 lead at halftime.

After Lane hit a three-pointer with 17:36 left in the second half to get the Chargers within 44-42, the Dolphins scored nine of the next 11 points to push their lead back to nine with 14:33 left. Davis, Wilson and Washington each made shots to increase the lead to 50-42 before Davis answered a Thomas lay-up with a three-pointer for a 53-44 advantage.

New Haven countered with an 8-2 run to get back within three with 11:35 left. Kendall McMillan scored four points in 38 seconds and then Rowland and Sean Braithwaite scored in the paint.

After a Le Moyne timeout following a lay-up by Johnson to put the Dolphins up 59-54 with 9:50 left, the Chargers scored six straight points to take their only lead of the game. Olawoye and Lane scored in the paint before Thomas had a put-back lay-up for the lead.

Le Moyne responded with the next seven points to take the lead back. Johnson made a fast-break lay-up, Wilson hit a jumper and then redshirt freshman guard Jack Poirier (Scituate, Mass./Scituate) drained a three-pointer from the left corner for a 66-60 lead with 7:01 remaining.

New Haven countered with the next six points to knot the score at 66 with 5:12 left. Olawoye made a lay-up and two free throws around a pair of freebies by Lane.

After Wilson and Thomas traded baskets, Davis made a lay-up with 2:26 left to give the Dolphins the lead for good. Wilson followed with a conventional three-point play to put the Dolphins up 73-68 with 1:04 to play.

Lane followed with a lay-up and a three-pointer around two free throws from Washington to get the Chargers within 75-73 with 25 seconds left.

The Dolphins committed a turnover with 18 seconds left to give the Chargers an opportunity to tie the score or take the lead, but New Haven was whistled for traveling with 13 seconds left.

Davis drew a foul on the ensuing in-bounds pass and converted both free throws with 12.2 seconds left. Lane hit a jumper in the paint with six seconds left to get New Haven back within two, but Davis finished off the game's scoring with two more free throws with three seconds left.

Le Moyne (2-1, 1-0 NE10), which has won five straight regular season matchups with the Chargers, returns to action on Tuesday at The College of Saint Rose at 7:30 p.m.


Additional quotes from head coach Nate Champion:
On how the team stuck it out and fought until the end:
"I think it's just something that we do every single day. We talk about games of runs, and other teams are going to go on runs and make shots, that's just the game of basketball, you can't let that get to you. You have to figure it out and continue to play the way that we want. And I think you saw that tonight. We had a ton of resolve, and Christian Davis down the stretch hits four big free throws to seal the deal and it's pretty hard to come back when you make your free throws, so it was really good to see our guys really stepping up."
 
On the impact of Xavier Wilson and Nicholas Johnson:
"You look at the stats and you see 14-of-16 from the field from our two forwards. You can't get much better than that. And for us it's been preached about the last few days - next man up. It doesn't matter if a guy goes down, you have to be ready to go off the bench and you have to step up into a bigger role and you saw that today, both of them did a great job. Huge going forward, as we continue to get healthier, it's only going to add to our depth in those positions, and I think you're starting to see some signs of growth in that position as well."
 
On not fouling:
"We did a great job of not fouling them, that's been something that we've struggled with in the past two games. People were going to the bonus at eight minutes and 12 minutes. It's just something that we can't have and I thought we did a much better job just moving our feet, helping each other out, contesting without fouling, being physical without fouling and we limited our risks that we took on defense. You didn't see guys just taking themselves out of plays, we were solid on the defensive end and we made them work for every shot they took, and to their credit they shot the ball really well. I mean 44% from three and 48% from the field is still a really good night shooting. But, it was just kind of that mentality of keep going at them, get them tired, and you saw that down the stretch, three minutes left in the game they turn the ball over a couple times, they make some mistakes, and that kind of allowed us to continue to go in the way that we wanted to."
 
"We talk about defending our home court, and this being our place and nobody can come in and take it, and that's something that we saw tonight, guys were really fighting for loose balls, rebounds, 50/50 balls, I just thought the overall urgency was there and anytime you start the league off 1-0 it's a great day, so we're going to enjoy it tonight and we'll get back to work tomorrow."
 
 
Quotes from Christian Davis:

On free throws down the stretch:
"We work on that kind of thing every single day, we work on pressure situations, making free throws because they really are free points so we have to take advantage of those. And just working on those pressure situations every day in practice is, I think, I'm just really confident when I go up there every time."
 
On minimizing fouls:
"It goes along with not giving other teams free throws and I feel like down the stretch, we've struggled a little bit with that - trying not to foul - but we're young and I think we're going to get a lot better at it, as long as we're finding ways to win then we can learn from our mistakes in a positive way."
 
How it felt to get a conference win:
"It felt amazing, the atmosphere was great, being at home. I've been waiting to play in this gym since I committed, like a year and a half ago, so I mean, shoot, one of the best basketball memories I've had so far definitely."
 
On being back on campus playing basketball for the Dolphins:
"It feels amazing. There's no other feeling like it - being out there and competing at this level in that type of game, that type of atmosphere with my teammates. It just feels really good, I almost forgot what it felt like. I couldn't be happier."