Manhattan 69 – Fairfield 61
Late this past week, Peter Mulligan gathered his teammates and looked for their forgiveness.
He hoped they could forget Thursday night, when he missed a game at Rider for breaking team rules, and wanted them to follow him for the rest of the season.
“I felt like I put my and my teammates’ backs against the wall,” he said. “I asked them if they would let me try to lead us out of this one.”
All the handshakes and hugs came before tip-off yesterday at Draddy Gym. And Mulligan gave his teammates no choice on the last part by surging ahead of them with another outstanding performance in an All-MAAC-type year.
Mulligan never checked out of yesterday’s 69-61 home win over Fairfield, and his 28 points helped bury a Stags team that defeated Manhattan (10-8, 5-5) in double overtime in November.
His performance came three nights after he and freshman C.J. Anderson served a one-game suspension for their role in an off-campus altercation at a bar near campus.
Manhattan lost 75-46 at Rider on Thursday, the program’s worst conference loss since 1991. Yesterday, Anderson scored 17 points, pushing the team to one of the season’s biggest wins.
“The two of them were great,” coach Bobby Gonzalez said. “But Peter was the catalyst who closed the deal for us and took us home at the end.”
Late in the first half, Mulligan’s maturity and dominance showed up. With the Jaspers ahead 17-15, he canned a 3-pointer on the left wing. He rebounded a Terrence Todd miss at the other end, then grabbed his own rebound on the ensuing possession, scored and got fouled.
The six-point swing put Manhattan up by eight, and Fairfield (10-9, 7-3) never pulled closer than four the rest of the way. It also sparked Gonzalez, who delivered a sideline fist pump ferocious enough to spin him halfway around.
“Peter’s our senior leader,” the coach said. “Some of the things that have happened this week were unfortunate. I wanted him to have a great game because I thought he deserved it.”
The game marked Mulligan’s fifth time over 25 points this season. And his teammates, as he asked, followed along as well as they could.
The Jaspers slowed Stags’ NBA prospect Deng Gai, who still finished with 12 points, 10 rebounds and eight blocks. And the Jaspers, beaten by 15 rebounds in Bridgeport in November, grabbed 20 offensive boards yesterday.
But this game belonged to Mulligan, who received his leadership once again and flourished there the way he has almost all winter.
“I know I’m kind of our go-to guy,” he said. “I went to my teammates and asked them if they would let me lead and carry the load.”