Box Score
Behind a stout defense and a balanced offensive attack, the New York University men's basketball team built a huge lead early and led by double digits nearly the entire way in an 84-53 season-opening win over Moravian College on Saturday afternoon, November 20, at the Jerome S. Coles Sports Center.
The victory was NYU's 11th straight in its season opener and propelled the squad to the Championship Game of its annual Tip-Off Tournament, to be played tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 pm.
The Violets (1-0) began the game on a 17-1 run, holding the Greyhounds (0-2) without a field goal for the first 10:18 while starting 7-for-11 from the field themselves. D.J. Glavan, fully healthy after an injury-plagued junior season, put NYU up 7-0 with a beautiful three-point play, slashing down the lane, finishing with his left and adding a free throw.
Just over a minute later, Glavan intercepted a long Moravian pass, raced down the court and dished to Max Wein in the right corner. The junior drained a three-pointer to continue the run.
Richie Polan capped the Violets' run with a trey from the top of the arc on a feed from Derek Becker. In all, NYU forced five Greyhound turnovers during the huge stretch, including three on steals and another on a shot-clock violation.
“I thought defensively we sensed the urgency and set the tone for the game,” said head coach Joe Nesci. “The defensive intensity was there and we got a lot of stops early on. Getting baskets off of strong defense is a good way to start the game.”
Moravian eventually turned up its defensive intensity, switching to a full-court press that initially forced the Violets into several turnovers. But NYU continued to stay strong on the defensive end and eventually regained control on offense, with no stretch bigger than the back-to-back possessions on which Kyle Stockmal drained triples, both on feeds from Glavan.
“Even though we had too many turnovers, we were able to play through it by shoring up our defense,” commented Nesci. “We made sure we were not giving up easy baskets in the half-court defense.”
Stockmal's threes reignited the Violet offense, which quickly began setting up plenty of easy baskets for itself. Polan's second trey, on a dish from Sam Cieplicki at the 2:54 mark of the first half, expanded the team's lead to 25, and it entered the break leading 45-25.
It was more of the same for NYU in the second half, with Moravian getting no closer than 15. For the game, the Violets shot 51.6 percent from the field while holding the Greyhounds to just 29.7 percent shooting.
Five Violets scored in double figures, led by Polan's 17, which he paired with 10 rebounds for his seventh career double-double. Glavan added 14 on perfect 6-for-6 shooting, followed by Wein (career-high 13 in his first career start), Stockmal (13) and Andy Stein (12 on 6-for-8 from the floor).
“It's always great when we get a balanced attack,” noted Nesci. “The way our team is built, we're not relying on one or two players. We have a number of guys that can score the ball.”
Carl Yaffe pulled down a career-high 13 rebounds to lead all players and added two blocks, while Glavan doled out a game-best five assists with just one turnover.
The Violets return to action in tomorrow's Tip-Off Tournament Championship Game at 3:00 pm. They will face SUNY Cortland, which defeated Emmanuel College 74-63 in the other opening-round matchup.
