The Brock Badgers men’s basketball team showed fight and hustle in their 74-60 comeback victory over the McMaster Marauders at Paint the Meridian Red on Jan. 17 to win their seventh straight game.
Davanté Hackett led the Badgers with 18 points while Thierry Tshibola and Michael Matas also recorded double-digit points with 14 and 13 respectively, but points were hard to come by for the Badgers in the first half.
Brock found themselves trailing early after the Marauders opened the game going on a 10-0 run which grew to a stunning 24-9 advantage after the first quarter, shooting 56.3 per cent from the field in the opening frame to leave the Meridian Centre speechless.
But the home crowd came to life in the second quarter as threes from Thierry and Anthony Heyes, the St. Catharines native, cut the deficit to single-digits before a 6-0 run by McMaster closed the half and restored their 15-point lead, 43-28.
However, the halftime break sparked the Badgers’ offence as they began the third going on a 12-2 run to get back into the game and restore hope amongst the Brock faithful.
Hackett’s step-back three-pointer midway through the quarter — representing three of his 12 third quarter points — gave the Badgers their first lead of the game, 49-48, and they never looked back.
The Badgers outscored the Marauders 27-9 in the third, in large part due to stellar defence that limited McMaster to only four made field goals (26.7 per cent), as the Badgers were up 55-52 with their explosion continuing in the fourth.
Brock rallied 19 points compared to McMaster’s eight, highlighted by a Ben Herbert three-pointer which seemingly put the game out of reach and expanded the Badgers’ lead to 14.
Paired with a strong defensive clinic which limited McMaster to shooting only 20 per cent from the field in the final frame, the Badgers second half surge sealed their dramatic Paint the Meridian Red victory — their fourth win in seven games in the history of the event and their first since 2020.
The Badgers’ offensive eruption was in large part due to a strong shooting performance from beyond the arc, making 10 of 24 three-pointers in the contest (41.7 per cent) while limiting the Marauders to only five makes on 31 attempts (16.1 per cent).
Brock also outscored McMaster in points in the paint (32 to 24), points off turnovers (18 to 12), second chance points (14 to 10) and bench points (49 to 20), which contributed to the Badgers earning their 10th win of the year for the ninth straight season.
Next weekend, the Badgers hit the road with back-to-back contests in Oshawa against the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks on Jan. 24 and in Kingston versus the Queen’s Gaels on Jan. 25.
For more information about the Brock Badgers men’s basketball team, visit gobadgers.ca.