PASADENA, Calif. – Caltech Men's Basketball took the court Wednesday night against New York University in front of a large Braun Gymnasium crowd split fairly evenly between home and visiting fans.
Hosting the No. 9 team in the D3Hoops preseason poll, the Beavers knew they were in for a tremendous challenge against the Violets, but some confidence-boosting scoring runs and defensive stops kept the game exciting and the Caltech fans energized.
The guests quickly ran ahead to an eight-point lead, but first-year Ryan Hu fired up the Beaver fans and his teammates with the game's first three-pointer to cut Caltech's deficit to five. A pair of Pranit Gunjal jumpers and then a three by Christos Palkogiannis cut the Violets' lead to just two points and induced a timeout from their coach.
A pair of free throws and another three by Hu kept it a one-possession game before NYU held Caltech scoreless for a five-minute span, with yet another Hu basket stopping the guests' momentum. After they had surged ahead to an 18-point advantage, three consecutive baskets by sophomore Noah Hicks sent Caltech into the halftime break with renewed drive and belief.
The second half was a showcase on Caltech three-point shooting as the team went seven-for-nine from beyond the arc, and with 8:10 left in the half a Hicks triple brought Caltech all the way back to within three points. Rookie Andrew Koclanes nailed a long ball of his own with just under five minutes left to make it 63-60 NYU. It turned out to be the last time the Beavers would pull so close, but the Beavers out-scored the Violets 42-39 in the later half, after scoring just 27 in the first.
"It was great to see our effort against a very good team," Head Coach Dr. Oliver Eslinger said. It was our entire team that was really connected, and we had a lot of belief as the game kept going. And there were a lot of outstanding individual performances, but all of those performances relied on teammates."
Hicks was the game's top scorer with 29 points, marking a career high for the Oxford, Georgia native. He further contributed three assists and grabbed four rebounds. Junior Riley Wood played the full 40 minutes without a substitution and collected a game-high 10 rebounds along with a blocked shot and two assists. Hu led the Caltech bench in scoring with 15 points, and first-year Matt Cantor's four bench points combined with Gunjal's and Koclanes' to give the Beavers the advantage in bench points over NYU, 32-27. Palkogiannis nabbed a team-high three steals.
Eslinger and the Beavers will return to their home court on Wednesday, Nov. 29 to open up SCIAC play against the University of La Verne.
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