On Oct 31, the women’s basketball team traveled to Syracuse University for an exhibition game to start off their winter season. The Golden Knights had a slow start to the night, with only 11 points in the first quarter. Syracuse University came out ready to play putting up 77 points on the night. The reason the Golden Knights traveled to SU was to get a better understanding on the difficulty level of playing against a D1, NCAA tournament style competitor. The Golden Knights held their own, as many players contributed to the tough battle against SU. Sophomore Payton Graber led the team with 15 points throughout the game. Graber had six field goals, two-three pointers and led with two steals. Junior Syrita Faraj netted three threes to finish with nine points on the board for Saint Rose. Felisha Legette-Jack, head coach of Syracuse women’s basketball, stated in a post-game press conference, “Saint Rose is not going to finish 8th like it says (preseason standings), their coaches are very defined coaches and that’s what we like to schedule exhibitions against.” The women’s basketball team was ready to take on a tougher competition, regardless of losing the match 77-53, the Golden Knights walked away with their heads held high to prepare for their regular season against Pace University on Nov. 15 in Pleasantville NY.
On Nov 1, The men’s basketball team followed our women’s team out west to face off against Syracuse U at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, NY. With this Golden Knights basketball team being fairly new, having only been together for a couple of months, they were ready to compete against a higher level team. Saint Rose was ready to play, scoring the first points of the game, but Syracuse came back with 21 of the next 25 points. For the Golden Knights, sophomore guard Adam Silas and junior forward Nuha Sagnia each scored ten points to finish in double digits. In a postgame interview, Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry said, “Number 11 (Ata Turgot), he can really shoot it and he made a couple of tough ones; that happens but we want to make everyone work for their shots.” Ata Turgot, a junior forward, led all players this evening with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Turgot made nine out of 16 field goals and was successful on four out of six three-point attempts. The Golden Knights fell 86-61 but are walking away a stronger team. These exhibition games are scheduled to prepare teams for the upcoming season. This game allowed them to see how they work together and let Coach Beaury see what corrections he needs to make during practice to get ready for their season opening tournament Nov. 11 and 12 against Wilmington University and Post University.
