WAYNE, N.J. – A shot with 0.5 second left sank the William Paterson men's basketball team (19-6, 13-5 NJAC) on Senior Night Feb. 18, handing visiting Rowan (16-9, 10-8 NJAC) a 62-60 victory in the regular-season finale for both teams. Senior guard Sandy Burgos (Fort Lee, N.J./Fort Lee) scored a game-best 21 points, becoming the 28th member of the Pioneers' 1,000-point club in the process.
Second-seeded WP has earned a first-round bye for the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Tournament, and will host a semifinal game Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 7:00 p.m. against the winner of the first-round contest between third-seeded The College of New Jersey and sixth-seeded New Jersey City to be played Saturday, Feb. 21.
Three ties and six lead changes resulted in a 28-28 halftime deadlock, and 10 straight points later allowed Rowan to build its largest lead of the game at 51-39 with 7:46 to play. Burgos started and finished a 9-0 Pioneer burst with a three-pointer and a pair of free throws, making it a 51-48 Prof lead with 5:15 remaining.
Rowan's lead hovered between two and six for the next four minutes until sophomore guard Galen Smith (Piscataway, N.J./Piscataway Tech) nailed a trey from the left corner, nudging WP ahead by a 57-56 count with 37.9 seconds left. Junior guard Kris O'Connor answered with a jumper from the right elbow five seconds later (58-57), but Burgos again gave William Paterson the lead, this time with a three-pointer with 19.8 ticks remaining to knot the score at 60-60. But O'Connor raced down the floor and launched a shot from just inside the arc on the left wing and it found the bottom of the net with half a second to play. A turnover on the ensuing inbounds play ended WP's effort to send the game to overtime.
Burgos added a team-high seven rebounds to his 21 tallies. His fast-break layup at the 12:03 mark of the first half gave him 1,001 career points. Smith added 12 tallies from off the bench.
Freshman forward TJ Booth led Rowan with 14 points, and O'Connor added 12 tallies.
Prior to the game, WP honored its four seniors – Burgos, Omer Amir (Kiriat Bialik, Israel/Ort Kiriat Bialik), Jaques Conceicao (Massama-Lisboa, Portugal/Francais Charle Lepierre) and Justin Grant (Springfield, N.J./Jonathan Dayton).