'Oddities' help Canisius hang on for win

By Budd Bailey

In the big picture, the Canisius men’s basketball team accomplished its primary goal Friday afternoon. It defeated Fairfield, 85-81, in the Koessler Athletic Center in its first conference home game of the season.

As for how it happened, well, that was the unusual part of the day.

Those in attendance saw a couple of basketball oddities along the way that made the game unusual and borderline memorable. But winning is always appreciated around the Main Street campus, especially after a 3-28 season in 2024-25.

“We came in very well prepared,” coach Jim Christian said. “Obviously we played very well with the ball – the best we’ve done all year. We had 22 assists (versus six turnovers). We haven’t been averaging that. That’s encouraging. … It was a team effort. I told these guys, we have a good team. We have to believe in one another to get better.”

Now about those strange moments.

Kahlil Singleton of the Golden Griffins opened the game’s scoring with a three-pointer. He hit another with 18:21 left in the first half. And another at 16:43 of the half. And at 16:28 of the half. And at 15:57. In other words, the guard had 15 of the 17 points Canisius scored in a four-minute span.

The lead disappeared during a Griffins’ dry spell in the next six minutes before Singleton went back to work. He scored a trio of three-pointers in the next two and one-half minutes. At that point, Canisius had a 27-23 lead, and Singleton had 25 of the team’s 27 points. Michael Jordan may not have done that in his stay in North Carolina.

“My teammates are always super-encouraging me, telling me to get shots up,” Singleton said. “I just came in with the mindset to be aggressive and get shots up. I feel like I’ve been passing up shots in most of the games we’ve played. I have to come out with this mentality to contribute.”

Singleton calmed down after that, and so did the game. The 6-foot-3 junior guard was held to three free throws the rest of the half, and the Griffins had a 39-37 lead.

“As time went on, I was pretty much facing a faceguard the rest of the game,” he said. “Honestly, when that happens, my mentality is to continue to make the right shots.”

“Offensively when we play up to our level, we can score,” Christian added.

Canisius never trailed in the second half, but its lead was only two points with 6:17 left. But the Griffins went on a sparkling 10-0 run to take control of the game. It stayed that way until there were 25 seconds left, and Canisius had an 83-73 lead. If this had been an election, the guys in the back room would have declared a winner at this time.

Yet the Stags weren’t done. Braden Sparks completed not one, but two four-point play in the final seconds to cut the Canisius lead to three points with five seconds left. In other words, there was still time to tie the game if Anthony Benard missed two free throws for Canisius. Christian no doubt was thinking about easier ways to make a living at that point. But Benard hit the second shot, enabling the Golden Griffins to escape with a victory.

“That was crazy,” Singleton said when asked to sum up the final seconds. He was right.

“We took our foot off the gas a bit, and in this league you can’t do that,” Christian said. “Every game is competitive.”  

Singleton finished with 37 points in the game. A Canisius player hadn’t reached that total in a game since Billy Baron posted 38 in a 2014 game against Marist. Bryan Ndjonga had 18 pints, and Myles Wilmoth finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Games played at this point in the schedule feel a little like a different part of the season. Canisius had been playing non-conference games for the most part for about two months, and it’s tough to judge relatively strengths when it comes to gauge where a specific team might fall.

The Griffs moved to 1-2 in the MAAC, 6-8 overall. That sounds a lot better than last year’s 3-17 MAAC, 3-28 overall. Fairfield fell to 0-4 in the conference, not a good sign, and 8-7 overall.

“In this league, everyone has different non-conference agendas,” Christian said. “We’re playing four guarantee games. We’re playing Bonaventure and Buffalo. Everybody is playing different games. They are all lessons to prepare for these 20 (conference) games. When we played our first two conference games, we didn’t have everybody. It was good for us to heal up. Now we have a full team.”

Next up, the Golden Griffins host Sacred Heart at noon on Sunday at the KAC. Maybe it will produce more clues about what will happened for the rest of the regular season. And maybe there will be a few more oddities.

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