Sophomore forward Willie Rodriguez could not be stopped in the Binghamton men’s basketball team’s game against Hartford on Thursday night.
Rodriguez dominated throughout the contest, tying a career-high with 27 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, leading the Bearcats to a 68-54 victory over the Hawks (7-19, 2-9 America East). The win was BU’s first against Hartford since the 2010-11 season and snapped Binghamton’s three-game losing skid.
“Willie played a super individual game overall, but everybody contributed,” BU head coach Tommy Dempsey said. “It was subtle in some ways, but I do feel like all 10 guys did their job tonight.”
Rodriguez dominated the first half of the game for the Bearcats (6-19, 3-9 AE). The Hawks couldn’t find a way to keep him out of the lane, and Rodriguez penetrated the paint, finished near the basket and scored via post-up opportunities. He poured in 11 points before halftime and grabbed eight rebounds — four on the offensive glass. Rodriguez finished an impressive one-handed put-back off of an offensive rebound and converted a free throw to put the Bearcats up, 26-17, with 30 seconds left in the first. They carried this nine-point advantage into the locker room at halftime.
The Bearcats alternated between zone and man-to-man defense to suffocate Hartford in the half. The Hawks shot just 23.1 percent from the field in the period and connected on one of their 12 3-point attempts, a paltry 8.3 percent. No Hartford player scored more than four points in the period.
“It was a combination of rotations out of the press, some individual man-to-man defense,” Dempsey said about his team’s ability to lock down the Hawks. “Then, just getting to them quickly in the zone and paying a lot of attention to them.”
Hartford managed to cut into the lead multiple times in the second half, but at almost every opportunity, Rodriguez halted its momentum. Five minutes into the period, the Hawks cut the BU lead to three, 33-30, but Rodriguez responded with an and-1 lay-up.
Ten minutes later, it appeared as if Hartford had worked its way right back into the game when Hawks’ redshirt junior guard Pancake Thomas hit a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to only four. But, Rodriguez answered with nine points and two rebounds to secure the victory for Binghamton.
Freshman forward Thomas Bruce was the only other Binghamton player to reach double-figure scoring in the game. He recorded 12 points and five rebounds. Redshirt junior guard Jalen Ross led Hartford with 16 points, while Thomas — the second-leading scorer in the conference — shot just 4-13 from the field.
The Bearcats had previously fallen to Hartford this year when the Hawks pulled out a 76-72 victory at the Events Center on January 13.
“I felt like this was one that we needed to grab,” Dempsey said. “We had a chance tonight to go against a team that’s near the bottom of the standings, and even though it was on the road, I thought there was urgency to get [a win] tonight … we got it.”
With the win, Binghamton moved from last place to seventh in the conference standings. The Bearcats jumped both UMBC — who fell to Stony Brook on Thursday — and Hartford, with just four games remaining in the regular season.
The Bearcats are set to return to action on Wednesday when they travel to take on Vermont. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. from Patrick Gymnasium in Burlington, Vermont.