No overtime required.
After winning consecutive triple-overtime marathons last week, one at MIT and one at home against Keene State, the Jumbos found a way to win a game in regulation on Saturday, defeating the Clark Cougars, 87-79, at the Kneller Athletic Center in Worcester.
Tufts pushed its winning streak to four games, improving to 6-2 overall, while Clark fell to 4-3 on the season. The fatigue of 110 long minutes of basketball over two games did not show on the court, and the Jumbos stayed strong Saturday to put the Cougars away with a 20-10 run in the final seven minutes.
"We really wanted to go out and make a statement," senior co-captain Brian Kumf said. "Fatigue wasn't a factor, because we saw the Keene State game as a turning point of our season, and we wanted to keep building on that win."
Saturday's game was characterized by streaky play on both sides. Down 10-8 early in the first half, the Jumbos went on a tear, scoring 13 unanswered points behind three-pointers from junior guard Jeremy Black, sophomore forward Jon Pierce and freshman swingman Dave Beyel.
With the score at 21-10, the Cougars scored seven straight points in just over a minute and a half. A three-pointer by junior guard Dominique Beck, who scored a team-high 18 points on the night, sparked a mini-run for the Cougars, and a pair of lay-ups cut the lead to four. Two minutes later, the Jumbos responded with another 13-0 run, pushing their lead to 37-20 with four minutes to play in the half. The 17-point cushion was the largest of the game for either team.
"We know we can score points; our biggest problem right now is not putting teams away," Black said. "We'll take a lead playing tough defense and getting rebounds, then we get complacent on defense and look up and it's a tie game with five minutes to play."
Clark scored the last six points of the first half to make the halftime score 41-30. The late flurry notwithstanding, the Cougars were anemic on offense in the first period, shooting just 30.3 percent from the field and finishing the half 2-for-13 from beyond the arc.
"When we play good defense, our offense flows," Black said. "Today was the best defense we've played all year - guys did a great job contesting shots."
True to Black's words, the Jumbos were 18-for-25 from the field and had assists on 12 of their 18 made field goals in the first half, indicative of crisp passing and player movement without the ball.
The latter stat was especially impressive considering that senior tri-captain Dave Shepherd, who is the team leader in assists at 6.9 per contest, sat out with a sprained ankle. He will be back for Tuesday's contest. Black got his first start of the season in Shepherd's place, and sophomore Aaron Gallant and senior Ross Trethewey each came off the bench to spell Black.
After scoring the last six points of the first half, the Cougars had the hot hand to begin the second. They notched the first six points of the half on back-to-back threes to pull within five at 41-36. The game seesawed for the next seven minutes until the Cougars went on a 10-0 run to take a 56-55 lead with just under 12 minutes to go, their first lead since 15 minutes into the game.
Neither team could take command of the game from there, and with 6:34 left, the teams were deadlocked at 67.
After that, the Jumbos gradually pulled away. Lay-ups from defending NESCAC Player of the Week Jake Weitzen, junior Ryan O'Keefe and Pierce and timely free throw shooting by Kumf - who had a game-high 14 attempts, converting on nine - provided the final margin of victory.
"I started to go to the basket a little more, and that part of my game is starting to come around," Kumf said. "But it was more just a consequence of us being aggressive inside - Jake, [senior tri-captain Brian Fitzgerald], Pierce, and myself. We dominated them on the boards."
While the Jumbos did out-rebound the Cougars, 44-29, turnovers dogged the Tufts offense yet again. Tufts coughed the ball up 23 times, compared to Clark's 13. But even with their turnover woes continuing, the Jumbos are riding high on a four-game win streak, one that they will look to extend on Tuesday against Plymouth State.
"[Beating Clark] was definitely a step in the right direction, but we feel like we've barely tapped our potential," Kumf said. "We have a chance to be really good."
