In a Sunday matinee against Brandeis, the men's basketball team stumbled through 40 minutes of play, scoring a season-low 56 points, shooting just under 23 percent from the floor in the second frame and ultimately falling 80-56.
Last night's game against Lesley was also a blowout, but this time, the Jumbos were on the correct side of a 92-52 thrashing. It was the team's largest margin of victory since pummeling Anna Maria College 103-63 on Dec. 5, 1998.
"It was a big step for us to come out and play well after we obviously did not play well Sunday," junior co-captain Jon Pierce said. "It was important to come out with energy in the beginning, and I thought we did that; we basically put the game away in the first five minutes. Everybody played in the first half. The defensive effort was good, [and] I'm glad the team responded that way."
"Keene State dropped us [from their schedule after] last year," coach Bob Sheldon said. "Lesley called because they're right around Cambridge and we figured why not? But I don't think we'll play them again honestly. Those games are good for guys who don't get much time, but we get better competition in practice. But it was nice to go out and run and see plays work and see guys score. It was a fun game for us."
Tufts, which advanced to 3-2 on the year with the victory, had the game all but wrapped up after the first 10 minutes, leading 26-3 at the 10:16 mark in the first. The Jumbos led by as many as 29 before the break, going up 48-19 with 23 seconds left in the half on a three-point play by junior Reed Morgan. Tufts led 48-21 at the half.
"We played good defense," Sheldon said. "They only had one player that [we worried about: 6-foot-8 sophomore Jesus Trejo]. We worked on a double in practice Monday for if the big guy started to hurt us. We did that the whole first half and he had two points. He finished with 17, but ... we were working on some things during the game. D is definitely a point of contention for us — we need to improve."
The Jumbos' commanding performance early on in the contest allowed them the opportunity to experiment with their bench. All 15 Jumbos played in the game, with 14 seeing double-digit minutes. Freshman guard Amauris Quezada, who had four career points going into the game, led the team with 18 in just 12 minutes, going 5-for-7 from the field and 4-for-6 from behind the arc.
Junior guard Dan Cook also contributed a career-high 16 points in 13 minutes on the strength of 4-for-7 shooting from downtown. As a team, the Jumbos went 12-25 from beyond the three-point line.
"Dan Cook made some nice shots [and] the freshman [Quezada] broke out," Sheldon said. "It's nice to give him some confidence and let him show us what he can do. Hopefully he can build on that."
"I saw what I see in practice every day," Pierce said. "They pressure the guys who play all the time and make us that much better, so when they got out there tonight it was just like they play in practice; they played hard defense, ran what they were supposed to, and knocked down open shots. I was very impressed."
Pierce contributed 16 points of his own with a 7-for-14 performance in a season-low 18 minutes. Pierce's season-low in minutes prior to last night was 32 in the blowout loss to Brandeis.
"It's definitely been a while since I played 18 in a game, but I'm certainly not complaining with the stretch of games we have coming up," Pierce said. "It's nice to be able to rest a little bit and cheer on the guys who work so hard in practice."
Thirteen Jumbos scored in the game, including the first career points for sophomore guard Henry Louis and senior forward Max Cassidy. Tufts out-rebounded Lesley by a margin of 51-34, with sophomore Brian Lowry's seven boards leading the Jumbos.
Tufts will now look to another home matchup against Plymouth tomorrow. Last season, the Jumbos took down the Panthers 84-64 on the road.
"I expect us to come out with same sort of intensity on D and have the offense take care of itself; there's no reason why we can't have a another big win going into Saturday at MIT," Pierce said.
"It's going to be a lot harder [than playing against Lesley]," Sheldon said. "They're in a different league, and they're usually in the top half. It'll be a good game."
