By Max Bergman
Staff Writer
On Wednesday, Nov. 29, the Golden Knights had a showdown with conference contender Franklin Pierce at the Nolan P. Gymnasium on campus. The Knights were looking to get above the .500 mark, going into this game with two wins and three losses.
With a chance to talk to Head Coach Brian Beaury before the game, he emphasized the fact that within the Northeast 10 division, which The College of Saint Rose currently contends in, there is no bad basketball team.
Beaury said, “[In this conference] the average game is decided by three possessions or less. There are bad days, young teams, but no bad teams.”
Even with Franklin Pierce’s single win record, Coach Beaury alluded that they are better than their record indicates, and he and his team have watched as much film as possible to prepare for this matchup. Going into this game, both the players and staff knew that this game would be decided by who is more resilient and who can last the forty minutes, not just being the better team.
As the game commenced, Franklin Pierce scored first, but Saint Rose answered back with a three-pointer, but then Franklin Pierce answered with a three of their own. Rotating blow for blow for the next twenty minutes, Franklin Pierce got the better of the first half, leading 41-37.
However, returning to the court after the long battle that was the first half, the Knights looked revitalized. Focusing more on defense, the Knights had a fire under them. This was somewhat undercut by the excessiveness of fouls being handed out by the referees.
By the end of this game, the referees had called 53 personal fouls according to the scorecard. Although the calls were evenly split, 26-27, with Saint Rose having one more than the visiting team, this is an absurd number of fouls.
Nevertheless, the Golden Knights quickly changed the tides of this game; not even five minutes into the second period, Ata Turgut, junior, took a fastbreak layup to tie the game. Following him within thirty seconds, Laitek Briscoe, sophomore, repeated Turgut with a fastbreak point of his own to take the lead, 48-50 over Franklin Pierce.
With 15 minutes remaining in regulation each team took turns running plays to answer back with points, but Saint Rose never gave the lead back until five minutes remained, 72-72.
This is where Dante Weise, freshman, who was named Northeast 10 “Rookie of the Week” for the period ending on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2023, made a pretty contested layup drawing a foul. With his free throw, the Knights were now separated by three points.
With this lead the Knights never loosened their grasp. Securing the win 93-84, this was the Knight’s highest scoring game of the season so far, with five players scoring double-digit numbers. Latiek Briscoe and Christian Pierre-Louis, sophomore and freshman respectively, both put up 17 points on the night, with Pierre-Louis shooting seven for eight from the free throw line.
Ata Turgut, junior, scored 16 points, with ten being in the second half, and Jabari Phillip Jr., freshman, also scored double digits, recording 13 points and eight rebounds. Tristian Jefferies, junior, led the team in scoring and rebounds, with 18 points and nine rebounds, while still averaging 60% field goal percentage, making six for ten.
After the game, when asked about offensive production considering this performance and if the Knights can keep up this offense production going, Tristian Jefferies said, “That’s not any attention of mine, we flow naturally and compete every time we come out here.”
With the Knights now entering their seventh match of the season with a .500 record of 3-3, the Golden Knights look forward to making some noise going into the colder months and competing in the Northeastern 10 Conference.
