ALBANY, NY – Braxton Bayless came off the bench to score all 14 of his points in the second half as Niagara defeated Siena Basketball 66-59 in the Saints home finale at MVP Arena.
Bayless, who sat out the first half, shot 7-8 from the field in the final stanza for Niagara (15-14, 11-8) which improved to 8-1 in MAAC road contests. Harlan Obioha led the way with 15 points and eight rebounds for the Purple Eagles who snapped a three-game losing streak.
Brendan Coyle led all scorers with a career-high 19 points off the bench on a perfect 6-6 shooting including 5-5 from three for shorthanded Siena (4-26, 3-16), which welcome back second-leading scorer
Michael Eley from a three-game absence, but was still without leading scorer
Sean Durugordon, starting point guard
Zek Tekin, and top reserve
Michael Evbagharu. Eley came off the bench to score eight points on 2-13 shooting.
Niagara led for nearly 36 minutes and jumped out to a 16-5 lead to start things off. The Saints responded with eight unanswered shortly thereafter to rally within a possession, and trailed just 26-22 at the half despite shooting just 28% (7-25) in the opening stanza.
Siena heated up to open the second half, connecting on six of their first seven shots to forge five separate ties early on. But Niagara rattled off eight straight points down the stretch to build their lead back to double digits at 57-47 with 4:43 to go. The Saints never got any closer than five in the waning seconds.
Ahmad Henderson II came off the bench to add 11 points for the Purple Eagles which won despite shooting just 5-20 from three. Niagara entered the day ranked 36
th nationally in three-point field goal percentage (.366).
Giovanni Emejuru posted his team-leading fourth double-double of the season with 14 points and 10 rebounds for Siena which shot 8-16 (50%) from three but just 12-36 (33%) on two-point attempts. The Saints received a season-high 39 points from their bench.
Siena wraps up regular season action against archrival Iona Saturday at 1 p.m. in New Rochelle, New York.
