Quinnipiac never trailed after jumping out to the 9-0 start, as the Bobcats took advantage of cold Iona shooting for most of the night. The Bobcats' offense was free-flowing early on, enlisting the services of Paul Otieno to set the tone and send shockwaves into the Iona defense. Otieno showed off his soft touch around the rim on his way to scoring 12 first-half points. The pick-and-roll combination between Otieno and Dezi Jones was lethal as well, with Jones setting up Otieno for his first three baskets of the afternoon to grow the lead to double-digits before the halfway mark of the first half.
“They put two to the ball and the big guy was open rolling,” Dunleavy said of the defensive looks Iona gave them. “Some teams do that, some teams don’t. When it’s the case, you gotta throw it to the big guy, and thankfully we have guys like Paul and (JJ) Riggins who can make plays on the roll.”
And with Iona playing its worst half of the season, Quinnipiac didn’t want to take its foot off the gas. The Bobcats kept going at Iona, taking advantage of some missed assignments by moving the ball and finding the open man. The recipient of a couple of drives and kicks from the Quinnipiac guards was Tyrese Williams, the newest member of the Quinnipiac 1,000-point club, who hit three 3-pointers from the right corner to maintain a double-digit lead.
“He’s really transformed himself into a physical guard who can shoot it from anywhere and really defend,” Dunleavy said of Williams, when reflecting on his career at Quinnipiac. “He really believes in Quinnipiac and really wants to win here, and we want to win so bad for guys like him.”
On the strength of five first-half threes, the other two coming from Tymu Chenery and Alexis Reyes, Quinnipiac arrived at the halftime break with a 42-28 lead. As for Iona, there was very little that went right for the Gaels in the first half after winning their previous two games by a combined 45 points. Iona entered the game averaging 81.3 points per game across four MAAC games, but there was a lid on the rim at M&T Bank Arena Sunday.
The only Iona player who had much of an impact in the first half was Daniss Jenkins, who dropped 15 points over the first 20 minutes. Jenkins scored 12 of Iona’s first 14 points, but besides his exploits, Iona made only three other field goal attempts in the first half, ending the opening stanza at 26 percent.
Starting the second half, Quinnipiac came out firing again, and this time, a 24-6 run blew the game wide open. By the time Luis Kortright hit a pair of free throws with 11:05 left, the score had ballooned to 66-34, inching the Bobcats closer to handing the Gaels their worst loss in the Rick Pitino era.
After the 23-point rout, the next closest margin of defeat for Pitino’s Iona teams was by 13 points on two occasions, to Kansas last season and to Alabama in the NCAA Tournament the year before that.
“It’s a big win that puts a statement in the MAAC,” Jones said after Quinnipiac snapped a two-game losing streak to Iona. “Next game we play, they're going to come right back at us and try to get their revenge.”
With Walter Clayton, Jr. missing his second straight game due to injury, Iona had to rely on extended minutes from talented, albeit inexperienced guards Cruz Davis and Anton Brookshire, the latter of whom had four threes. However, it wasn’t nearly enough to match Quinnipiac’s do-it-all back court duo of Jones and Kortright. Jones ended his night with a season-high 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists, while Kortright had 11 points, six assists and four rebounds. Jones and Kortright combined for 12 of their team’s 16 assists on the night. In that first half alone, the Bobcats tallied 12 assists on 16 first-half makes.
“They’re willing to be unselfish, so it says a lot about their talent, but also their mentality that they like to do it,” Dunleavy said. “(I’m) really proud of Dezi and Luis tonight on a night when Savion (Lewis) was unavailable.”
In every major category, Quinnipiac outdid an Iona team who likes to run and doesn’t turn over the ball much either. That’s what makes Iona tough to beat, and Quinnipiac’s performance today all the more impressive. The Bobcats’ depth proved too much for Iona, who were down two of its regular starters in Clayton and Quinn Slazinski, as well as reserve Michael Jefferson.
“They're as fast as any team in the country in terms of how they get out and get easy buckets,” Dunleavy said of Iona. “But because our defense was where it was, it allowed us to be pretty consistent throughout, and that’s really what we’ve been working towards in practice.”
Midway through the second half, Iona went on a 21-7 run over an eight-plus-minute stretch to get to within 15, but the damage was already done. Being able to build an insurmountable lead felt good, said Dunleavy, especially after experiencing 11 lead changes in an 83-76 loss to Siena on December 30.
“We made mistakes today down the stretch, but it didn’t hurt us as bad because we had a better 35 minutes before that,” Dunleavy said.
Out of the half, Pitino was upset with a call off a turnover by Davis and got called for a quick technical foul. A few minutes later, the Iona bench got called for a technical too, prompting Pitino to plead with his players to regain their focus.
They never fully did.
“We were in their head,” Jones said.
And Quinnipiac is now in everyone else’s head around the MAAC after today.
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