This past weekend, Colby Men’s Basketball hosted Brandeis and Emory Universities in the UAA/NESCAC Challenge.
Saturday was a battle between two undefeated teams. Colby came into play with a record of 7–0, and Brandeis was 6–0.
Colby dominated the first half and proved to be the better team. Within five minutes of play, Colby jumped out to a 19–5 lead. The Mules torched the Judges, shooting sixty percent from the field and fifty-five percent from beyond the arc. They also held their own under the rim, logging in 18 points in the paint and out-rebounding Brandeis by 12.
Colby’s defense was too much for the Judges who struggled to convert early on. Colby ended the first half with a sixteen-point lead.
In the second half of play, Colby’s hot shooting cooled off. The Mules began missing shots, and Brandeis was able to cut down on the lead. However, a strong performance from the defense and scoring from Lucas Green `24 willed the team to victory 66–52.
Now with a record of 8–0, Colby took the court on Sunday to face a strong Emory squad.
Similarly, the Mules jumped out to an early lead to start the game, which was 15–2 through the opening five minutes of play. However, over the next five minutes, the Emory Eagles were able to seize back momentum, tying the game at 17 with ten minutes remaining.
The rest of the first half was tightly contested, but Noah Tyson `23 and Green paced the Mules on offense, giving them the lead for the majority of play.
Emory eventually grabbed their first lead of the contest with a three at four minutes and fifty-five seconds remaining in the first half to move in front 27–26. While the back-and-forth half continued, Colby headed into the locker room with a 34–31 lead.
Emory had better percentages in field goals and three–pointers, but they had the lead for less than two minutes while Colby led for over thirteen minutes of play.
Coming out of the break, Max Poulton `26 scored a jumper, but Emory responded right back with a quick layup. The even play continued for five minutes until Emory erupted for a massive scoring run that turned around the contest.
After the Emory layup, Colby’s offense went scoreless for the next six minutes. Emory turned their defense into offense and scored at will by pushing the pace in the fastbreaks and outrebounding the Mules, giving them plenty of second-chance opportunities.
With ten minutes remaining of play, Tyson bailed the Mules offense out with an improbable contested deep two as the shot buzzer expired to end the Emory run.
Twenty seconds later, a huge corner three cut the Emory lead to six and got the Colby crowd up on their feet. Colby looked to have the momentum, but Emory’s dominance on the boards and their perfect second-half free-throw shooting continued to extend their lead whenever the Mules got within grasp.
Colby had some other nice surges with threes from Poulton and a desperation chuck by Will King `23 that kissed the backboard and fell through the net, but Emory remained solid on offense and kept the Mules at bay.
An emphatic Emory dunk with fifty seconds left of play sealed the loss for the Mules on the day.
They competed hard but ultimately didn’t have enough firepower to overcome the Eagles’ dominant second half.
Poulton, Tyson, and King were the only scorers in double digits for the Mules.
The Mules will have a couple of days to regroup and build off their strong start to this season when they host the University of Maine-Farmington on Dec. 8.
~ Julian Cangieter-Hernandez `25
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