Niagara basketball clicking as March approaches

LEWISTON, N.Y. (WIVB) — Things are clicking at the right time for Niagara men’s basketball.

After coming all the way back from trailing by 16 in the early parts of the second half, the Purple Eagles rallied to beat rival Canisius 69-64 at Gallagher Center on Tuesday night.

Niagara erases 16-point second half deficit, claws past Canisius

The win improved Niagara to 8-4 in MAAC play and 12-10 overall, matching the program’s best 12-game start in league play since the 2017-18 campaign. It also, for the moment, is in sole possession of second place in the MAAC after breaking a tie with St Peter’s and Fairfield. It only trails Quinnipiac in the league standings, which is 10-1 in league play.

To find a better 12-game start you have to go all the way back to 2012-13, when the program started 10-2 in league play under former head coach Joe Mihalich before late-season stumble saw it finish 13-5 in league play and lose in the conference tournament semifinals before making the NIT.

In 2017-18, it started not only 8-4 in league play but 11-4 before losing two of three to close the regular season, falling in the MAAC tournament quarterfinals and then falling in the first round of the now-defunct collegeinsider.com tournament.

Greg Paulus is in his fifth year as the head coach on Monteagle Ridge and this has shown to be his best team so far. The Purple Eagles have now won five of six games with eight games remaining in the regular season before the league tournament in Atlantic City, N.J.

“It’s developing. We want to continue to grow,” Niagara coach Greg Paulus said following Tuesday’s win. “The more we’ve been able to build relationships one-on-one, those guys have been able to build relationships with each other. It takes time for them to come together and we’ve been in a lot of situations to this point, there’s going to be more but for us I think the credit goes to the individuals and the character of the individuals in that locker room.”

Seven-footer Harlan Obioha, who came into the night averaging 9.3 points per game, finished with a team-leading 16 points, while Yaw Obeng-Mensah, who came in averaging 10.2 points per game, finished with 11.

Paulus said that the toughness of the team was part of the recipe of the win on Tuesday night and has been a consistent part of the entire season, as well as fighting through adversity and adjusting to different styles of play when they face each of the MAAC’s other 10 teams.

“For us, we got to continue to learn how to prepare, learn how to play with different styles and versus different styles and win in different ways. When you play teams a second time around, they’re going to make adjustments,” Paulus said. “As we continue to evolve as a team, we got to continue to work hard.”

The Niagara program has only made the NCAA tournament three times in its history and has not made it since 2007, something that Paulus and this group of Purple Eagles are trying to change in the next five weeks, while also trying to do it the right way.

“When you look at us from a program standpoint, we want to be a team that, hey, maybe the shots don’t go in and we may not be at our best all the time, but we can compete and play together and be unselfish and try to represent those that have come before us,” Paulus said. “So that when they watch us they’re proud, because there’s a rich history here and we’re grateful to be a part of it.”

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Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.

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