Balanced Attack Leads Tribe to Milestone 10th League Win

Four Tribe players scored 12 or more points as W&M won double-digit CAA games for just the second time since joining the league.

02/20/08 10:30PM

Williamsburg - The William and Mary men’s basketball team used a stout defensive effort and a balanced offensive attack to tally its 10th Colonial Athletic Association victory of the season, knocking off Drexel, 57-50, on Wednesday night at Kaplan Arena. The College limited the Dragons to just 39 percent shooting from the floor in becoming only the second W&M team to win double-digit league games in the 23-year history of the CAA. The Tribe improved to 14-12 overall and 10-6 in the league, while Drexel fell to 11-17 on the year and 4-12 in CAA action.

Senior Nathan Mann led a quartet of Tribe players in double figures with 13 points, including a 3-of-5 shooting from long range. Senior Laimis Kisielius along with sophomores David Schneider and Danny Sumner rounded out the balanced attack with 12 points apiece. Kisielius topped the squad with seven rebounds as the College held a 32-27 advantage on the glass against the Dragons. Schneider tallied a career-best six steals, which are the most for a Tribe player in four seasons.

After struggling to find its shooting touch in the opening 20 minutes, the Tribe roared out of the locker room. Trailing 25-22 at the intermission, W&M scored the first four points of the second half on lay-ups from Kisielius and Sumner. The lead bounced back and forth over the next few minutes as a longball from the top of the key by Kisielius gave W&M a 31-30 cushion six minutes into the second stanza.

After a Frank Elegar lay-up gave the lead back to Drexel, the Tribe went on a seven-point spurt to take the lead for good. Kisielius found freshman Marcus Kitts for an open court lay-up, before Nathan Mann drilled a trifecta from the right side. Kisielius capped the run with a pair from the free throw line to push W&M on top, 38-32 midway through the second half.

Following the under eight-minute media timeout, the lead reach seven on two more freebies from Kisielius, who finished 7-of-9 from the line. The freebies gave W&M a 44-37 advantage, but Drexel battled back with a 7-2 run to close to within a pair. After a 3-pointer from the left wing by Tramayne Hawthrone, Elegar made a pair of plays with a dunk on the offensive end and then block on the defensive side of the ball. The rejection led to a fastbreak lay-up by Jamie Harris, slicing the W&M advantage to 46-44 with 5:31 remaining.

After a 30 second timeout by the Tribe, Mann came up with a huge 3-pointer from the right wing to push the W&M lead back to five, 49-44. The cushion again reached seven, 51-44, after a pair of free throws from Schneider with 2:54 remaining. The Dragons would not go quietly and cut the lead to a single possession, 53-50, on a lay-up from Neisler. It would be as close as Drexel could get though as the Green and Gold hit its final four chances from the charity stripe to ice the victory.

Despite only shooting 34.8 percent from the floor on the night, W&M connected on 42.1 percent from the field in the second half. The College was also 4-of-7 from 3-point range in the second 20 minutes. One of the biggest keys of the night for the Tribe was its free throw shooting as the Green and Gold connected on 87 percent (20-of-23) from the charity stripe.

Drexel got out of the gates quickly, hitting three of its opening four shots of the game. The early shooting touch staked the Dragons to a 7-2 cushion following a Harris offensive putback of his own blocked shot at the 16:41 mark. After Sumner scored four straight points in the paint for the Tribe, Kitts gave the College its first lead of the game with a pair of free throws. His freebies capped a 6-0 run to put the Tribe on top 8-7 with 13:31 left in the opening half.

The lead bounced back and forth over the remainder of the first half as the opening 20 minutes featured six lead changes and five ties. W&M pulled even for the fifth and final time of the half at 22 on a Danny Sumner lay-up at the 1:18 mark. Drexel answered right back though with Hawthorne’s third 3-pointer of the first half to take a 25-22 lead to the locker room.

Along with its free throw shooting, another telling stat in the contest for W&M was its ability to limit the touches and effectiveness of preseason first-team All-CAA choice Elegar. In the teams’ earlier meeting this season, Elegar finished with a double-double amassing 24 points and 15 rebounds in Philadelphia. The Tribe’s three-headed bigman group of junior Peter Stein, sophomore Steven Hess and Kitts limited the Dragon’s leading scorer well below his season averages with just nine points and five rebounds.

The Tribe continues its brief two-game homestand when its steps out of league play to host Horizon League foe Loyola (Chicago) on Saturday, Feb. 23. The game came about as part of the O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters, which features 100 teams from 16 conferences across the country. Tip-off for the first-ever meeting between the Tribe and Ramblers will be 1 p.m. at Kaplan Arena. Fans can catch the action over the Tribe Radio Network with Jay Colley, Bill McDonald and Charlie Woollum on the call. The broadcast can also be heard over the Internet at TribeAthletics.com.

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