Canisius exits the season with a loss

By Budd Bailey

Senior Day (or Night) used to be a staple of the college basketball season. It was something like graduation – a day to look back at the end of a journey that usually took three or four years, and a day for all concerned to show their appreciation for the ride.

The journeys have gotten shorter these days of the transfer portal, as athletes barely have time to learn how to say hello before they are saying good-bye. Yet as Canisius showed on Sunday afternoon, that last home game can carry some emotion.

Ask Golden Griffins’ coach Jim Christian, a basketball lifer who saw something Sunday afternoon in the Koessler Athletic Center that he liked a lot.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said. “I’ve never seen on Senior Day an entire team take a picture with a senior. These guys only played together for one year. They do care about each other. There are some guys who played their last basketball game, so it’s tough when things come to an end.”

Canisius had nothing at stake in Sunday afternoon’s game with Quinnipiac. The Golden Griffins were out of the postseason picture, while their opponent was warming up for the upcoming Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s playoffs. Even so, this wasn’t a day for running for the bus.

“To me it’s always going to be more than basketball,” Christian said. “Like I told them after the last game, these are life lessons that you need to have – understanding that you finish. You never quit what you started, whether you are in the tournament or not in the tournament. I think those are lessons that these guys will take with them in life. That’s what important about it.

“Could we have played better? No question. We could have put ourselves in a better position. But that’s just the basketball part of it. I’m more concerned with the people. We have really good people.”

The two teams put on an entertaining show as the calendar flipped to March. It might have made for some nicer memories if the Griffins had closed the show with their second straight win on the season’s final weekend. They had defeated conference leader Merrimack on Friday night, ending an 80-game streak in which they had not won a game that saw them behind or tied with five minutes to go. (Ponder that stat for a moment.) However, on Sunday the Bobcats pulled out a 67-63 win before 531 in the KAC.

Canisius had a nice 13-1 run to take a 10-point lead midway through the first half. Quinnipiac fought back to get within one at the half, despite a 0-for-10 shooting statistic on three-pointers in the first half. Tthe Bobcats received some major help from guard Asim Jones in the second half. After a four-point first half, Jones lit up Canisius with 23 points in the second 20 minutes. The guard had 17 of his team’s 20 points during one span of about eight minutes. That’s quite good for a team’s third-leading scorer. Bryan Ndjonga led the Griffins with 17 points.

Canisius finished the season with a 10-21 record, 5-15 in the MAAC. That’s progress, if you are wondering. The Golden Griffins were 3-28 last season, and 3-17 in the conference.

“There was a part in the middle of the season when he kind of let go of our goals,” Christian said. “If we had stayed the course on those and won the games we were capable of winning, then these last two home games would have meant a lot more. We would have had a tremendous amount of energy heading toward the tournament. That’s what you have to learn. You can’t let one game, two games, spill into five games.”

Up the I-190, Niagara also finished with a loss on Sunday afternoon. The Purple Eagles fell to Merrimack 73-66, and they finished the season at 8-22, 5-15 MAAC. The local teams could not qualify for the postseason tournament, which includes the top 10 teams in a 13-team league.

With the season over, life becomes even busier for the coaches. There’s little time to reflect on the season past; there’s just too much work to do.

“The first thing I’ll do is meet with these guys so they have a clear understanding of what moving forward means, what their season was, what they can do,” Christian said. “(I must) get a gauge in whether they’re coming back. That’s all part of basketball now. That will be first, and recruiting will take place after that.”

The yearly cycle never stops. It just moves into the next phase.

(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)