With the largest margin of victory in the past three seasons, the men's basketball team defeated Newbury College 97-61 on Tuesday in Cousens Gym. The Nighthawks didn't know what hit them as the Jumbos jumped to an early lead and ran away with the game.
When the Nighthawks did not break the 10-point barrier until nearly 12 minutes into the first half on 8-31 shooting, they seemed on track to have more turnovers than field goals.
Coach Bob Sheldon anticipated the Nighthawks' difficulty scoring against the Jumbos. Confident of a win, he rotated his starters early.
"This was a golden opportunity to get some of the guys in that don't play as much," he said.
Often Sheldon would substitute three or four players at once, a rotation more reminiscent of ice hockey than college basketball. This exchange kept fresh players on the court and allowed the Jumbos to maintain a high-paced tempo on the floor, one that the Nighthawks, it turned out, simply could not match.
Newbury is 2-17 this season, but given the Jumbos' recent upset losses to Keene State and Connecticut College, Sheldon wasn't taking any chances.
"He didn't tell us [Newbury's] record or anything like that," sophomore forward Brian Kumf said. "We prepared just like they were any other team."
But even before the starting buzzer, Sheldon was envisioning a chance for his team to stretch their legs against some fresh competition.
"We really wanted to just blow them out," he said. "Sometimes the starters get tired of practicing against the game guys every day and we need some new people."
Tuesday's game was the Jumbos' first back in Cousens since mid-January when the team embarked on an eight-game road trip that began when the rest of the student body was still sleeping and tanning.
In reality, the game served as a warm-up for this weekend, when the Jumbos will wrap up the 2004-2005 season with home games against NESCAC rivals No. 22 Trinity and No. 4 Amherst.
"It was really good to be home. We got some practice playing again in this gym with the game-like noise," Sheldon said. "Never again will they have to go through that."
The Nighthawks gave the Jumbos only one scare when, with 6:25 to play in the first half, they roared back and cut the deficit to nine.
But Newbury did not know what to make of Tufts freshman Ryan O'Keefe. For most of the first half, the guard remained somewhat quiet, but exploded as Newbury closed in.
Each of O'Keefe's three shots from behind the arc swished through, adding nine of the Jumbos' 13-point push to end the half with a more-than-comfortable 23 point margin. O'Keefe finished with a team-high 15 points on 6-11 shooting.
In the second half, Sheldon decided to leave no doubt about the Jumbos' prowess.
"I noticed that we had been dominating inside and we had a huge height advantage," he said, "So I told them to go up for the alley-oop."
The first few times, the acrobatics failed, but eventually the perfect pass came to junior Dan Martin and he slammed it home. Martin complemented his 15 points with 10 rebounds for the double-double.
By the time the 15-minute mark rolled around, the Jumbos were comfortably ahead. The lead dipped below 20 fleetingly, but after an 18-3 Tufts run, the win was never in jeopardy.
"There is no doubt that we had a real fun time," Kumf said "It was a definite confidence boost."
As the Jumbos' lead grew, Sheldon mixed up the rotation, trying different combinations on the floor and giving the bench ample playing time. Freshman Casey D'Annolfo scored his first points of the season with seven, as did junior Jimmy Edgerton, who converted both of his shots from three-point land.
Although the blowout nature of the game precluded any last-second theatrics, senior tri-captain Reggie Stovell put forth the kind of performance the Tufts community has come to expect, going 4-9 from the field and finishing the game with eight points, well below his season average of 18. Sheldon strategically played Stovell for only 15 minutes to keep him fresh for the upcoming games this weekend.
With their third consecutive win, the Jumbos moved to 14-8 overall and will head into a weekend of nationally ranked league competition at 6-1 in NESCAC.
