The Rensselaer men’s basketball team split their UCAA road trip this weekend with a tough 66-58 loss to Clarkson on Friday and a comfortable 72-59 victory over the Saints of St. Lawrence University on Saturday.
Earlier in the week, Head Coach Mike Griffin said the Red Hawks were hoping to sweep the road trip, but admitted splitting on the road was a very reasonable and realistic goal.
Rensselaer is now 10-5 overall this season, and is 4-1 in the always competitive UCAA conference.
In the Clarkson game, field goal shooting was ultimately the deciding factor. The Red Hawks only converted on 28 percent of their field goals shots and only shot 61 percent from the free-throw line. In comparison Clarkson shot an amazing 40 percent from the field and over 80 percent from the line.
Despite, the poor shooting, Rensselaer remained within striking distance, especially due to great work on the boards. The Red Hawks out rebounded Clarkson 50 to 34 and especially dominated the offensive glass—grabbing 27 boards compared to the Golden Knights’ seven.
Unfortunately the Red Hawks rebounding advantage was due in large part to their horrendous shooting performance.
Rensselaer was also unable to mount a significant run as they had done in their previous six wins, as their winning streak officially came to a close.
Senior captain Jared Hite continued on his streak of double-doubles. This makes it five striaght game where Hite has been in double figures in more than one statistical category.
Hite scored 15 points and pulled down 13 rebounds for Rensselaer.
Junior captain John Van Schaick contributed a solid 15 points for the Red Hawks while junior guard Paris Moore added 14 in the loss.
The following afternoon, the entire Rensselaer squad bounced back with a vengeance against the always talented Saints of St. Lawrence.
The Red Hawks started the game on a 10-0 run, sending a clear message to the Saints that they were not dwelling on their previous loss.
However, St. Lawrence slowly climbed back into the game throughout the first half, getting the score to 36-30 RPI at halftime.
The game would remain close throughout the entire second half, but Rensselaer never relinquished control of the lead. Solid defense and free throw shooting lengthened the gap down the stretch as the Red Hawks walked away with the weekend split.
Rensselaer played a near flawless game, committing just seven turnovers, and again controlled the glass, grabbing 44 rebounds to the Saints 33.
But perhaps the most noteworthy stat of the game was again field goal percentage, as the Red Hawks improved their shooting by 10 percentage points from Friday night to Saturday afternoon. Rensselaer also went 8-18 from beyond the arc in what was a much improved shooting performance for RPI.
Four players reached double figures for the Red Hawks, led again by Hite who had his second double-double of the weekend with 20 points and 15 rebounds.
Moore had another first-class game with 17 points, Van Schaick added 14, and sophomore Tom Schneider had 10 points of his own.
The Red Hawks will be back on the road for another pair of tough UCAA games next weekend against two excellent programs in cross-town rival Union on January 30 and Skidmore on January 31.
