Army Wins New York City Thriller

Wednesday, November 23

New York, N.Y.

7 p.m.

Army West Point

2-3

Columbia

2-2

Army West Point

Columbia

Army Wins New York City Thriller

November 23, 2016 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

NEW YORK CITY – The Army West Point men's basketball team rallied to overcome a late 11-point second-half deficit to earn a huge road victory over Columbia, 88-83, here Wednesday night.

Following a back-and-forth affair, Columbia led 75-64 with a little less than eight minutes remaining on the clock. Army would not waiver though using a 20-6 run to pull in front 84-81 with 50 seconds left to play.

The Lions tried to answer and even pulled within 84-83 following two made free throws from Nate Hickman, but the Black Knights held strong. After being fouled John Emezie stepped up and drained two from the charity stripe to make it a three-point ballgame.

Army forced Columbia into a rushed shot from the top of the 3-point line that rattled off the rim for Mac Hoffman to collect. The Lions immediately fouled the senior and the Pleasanton, Calif., native stepped calmly up to the line and converted on both of his free throw attempts to seal the win.

Jordan Fox posted a career-best 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting from the floor. He also drained 4-of-7 from behind-the-arc for his best career night from long range. 13 of his final points came in the opening period alone to lead all scorers.

Three other Cadets joined Fox in double figures with Emezie earning a career-best 16 points, and Wilson and Adam Roe matching their career highs with 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Hoffman led the Black Knights on the boards with seven rebounds, while Wilson added five of his own.

Rookie Tommy Funk handed out five assists to go along with Fox's career-high three steals.

ARMY HIGHLIGHTS AND GAME NOTES

The Black Knights won their first game this season by single digits after having dropping the last two by a combined eight points.
Army shot 46.9 percent (30-of-64) from the floor and 39.4 percent (13-of-33) from downtown. The Black Knights also converted on 15 of their 21 attempts from the charity stripe.
Columbia held the 45-26 edge on points in the paint but Army outscored the Lions 14-8 on points off turnovers.
Both benches added 25 points.
There were two tie scores and nine lead changes throughout the contest.
Army held its largest lead in the game at 45-36 with 24 seconds remaining in the opening half.
Columbia was in front by its largest margin at the 11:30 mark of the second half when it held the 75-64 advantage.
The Black Knights led for 11:30, while Columbia was on top for 27:43. The game was tied for 47 seconds.
With the win, head coach Jimmy Allen earned his first career victory over a Division I opponent.

TURNING POINT

The home team built an 11-point lead with 7:47 remaining in the game. Army rallied though sparking a 20-6 run to pull in front 84-81 with 50 seconds left. From that point, Army would never relinquish the lead.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Army held the slim 16-14 advantage at the first media timeout of the half but out of the break Columbia used a 7-0 run over a little under three minutes to take the 21-16 edge. Fox ended the Cadets scoring drought with a jumper.
The Lions maintain the 39-36 lead with 2:56 left in the first half but the Black Knights ended the half on a 16-2 run, sparked by five treys, two that were back-to-back from the hands of Fox, to take the 45-38 advantage into halftime.
Three minutes into the second half, Army held the 54-46 lead, but then Columbia saw Hickman score nine straight to erase any edge the Black Knights had created.
Columbia used that momentum and extended its advantage to 76-64 with 7:47 remaining in the contest.
But that would all changed as the Black Knights sparked a double-digit run that handed them a 84-81 lead late that they would never lose.

STRAIGHT FROM THE SOURCE

Head Coach Jimmy Allen: "I'm really excited for our players. The thing I told them in the locker room afterwards was that they've shown to be very resilient this season so far. That's pretty exciting because I know it would have been easy to get down a little bit. This was one of those games that went back-and-forth. I thought we kind of took their punches. There was only one stretch there that we got a little bit down but our guys bounced right back, didn't blink and just kept playing. That's what we are trying to build in our program right now.

"Talk about a gutsy effort, Jordan Fox came in and knocked down shots which gave us a huge lift and tons of confidence. I'm excited also for some other guys that made some plays. Guys like Richard Brown, who maybe had the biggest two offensive rebounds of the night. Jacobs Kessler had been shooting the ball great for us early on, then just went through a stretch of games where he didn't shoot it well and I know he was a little bit frustrated but he came back and made some shots for us tonight. And then Adam Roe coming off the bench and gave us a big lift down the stretch."

UP NEXT