STANDISH, Maine -- The Bates men's basketball team finished the regular season with a 62-57 non-conference win at St. Joseph's College of Maine Monday night, in a makeup date from a game originally scheduled for November.
With its eighth win in its final nine games, Bates improves to 19-5 with the victory, tying the 2004-05 Bobcats for the second-most wins in team history. The 2004-05 squad, Bates' only team to advance to the NESCAC finals, finished 19-8.
The Bobcats now move on to the eight-team NESCAC Men's Basketball Championship tournament as the No. 3 seed. Bates will host Wesleyan University, led by former Bates head coach Joe Reilly, on Saturday at 3pm in their first postseason home game since 2010.
Junior Mike Boornazian(Portland, Conn.) scored 16 points, senior Graham Safford(Hampden, Maine) added 14 points and six assists and first-year forward Max Eaton (St. Petersburg, Fla.) continued his hot play of late, scoring nine points on 4-of-5 shooting, including 1-for-1 on 3-pointers, to go with a career-best nine rebounds and three assists.
Craig Luschenat scored 18 points to lead the Monks (12-11), shooting 5-for-11 from the field and from beyond the arc. Steve Simonds grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds, Jordan Tripp handed out seven assists and Quinn Richardson-Newton added 11 points.
Bates never trailed and led by as many as 14 points with 9:38 left in the game before the Monks struck for a 15-3 run to cut the lead as low as two, at 53-51, with 3:14 to go.
A three-point play by Safford gave Bates some breathing room at 56-51 but layups by Tripp and Richardson-Newton kept the Monks within three at 58-55 with 1:24 left. Bates got a pair of free throws from Boornazian with 50 seconds left, then stopped the Monks on two straight possessions before Boornazian was sent to the line again and made 1-of-2 for a 61-55 lead.