George Washington University
Toledo (CBI First Round)
Men's Basketball Topples Toledo in CBI, 73-69
3/15/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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WASHINGTON -- Shooting for its 20th win of the season in a first round CBI matchup against the Toledo Rockets on Wednesday night, GW men's basketball found its mark and triumphed 73-69 at the Charles E. Smith Center. The Colonials improved to 20-14 on the season with the victory and advance to the CBI Quarterfinals on Monday night at the winner of Thursday's contest between Stony Brook at Illinois-Chicago.
GW rode its pair of grad students to the win as Tyler Cavanaugh and Patrick Steeves did as they pleased with the Rockets. The duo combined for 48 points on 17-of-26 shooting, with Cavanaugh proving to be virtually unguardable once again. The All A-10 Performer sunk five more three-pointers on eight attempts to extend his team-high total to 65 this season. Last season's NIT Most Outstanding Player yet again began a postseason tournament in dominating fashion and is now shooting above 40% from deep this season. Cavanuagh's outing was his 16th 20-point effort of the year.
The Colonials led wire-to-wire on Wednesday night and have now won seven of their last eight games, with only last week's A-10 Quarterfinal heartbreaker to Richmond interrupting the best basketball of the year for the squad from Foggy Bottom.
Toledo was paced by Jaelen Sanford's 25 points on 11-of-19 shooting with Steve Taylor Jr. accounting for 18 for the visitors. The Rockets entered play ranked 28th nationally in shooting percentage and were able to connect at a .509 clip in the contest, but the GW defense limited Toledo to 10 points below its season scoring average of 79 by limiting second chance points (4) and points on the break (2).
What was an 11-point lead at its largest was trimmed to two in the closing seconds by a pesky Rockets squad that refused to die out. Toledo had a chance to tie on its penultimate possession before Cavanaugh fittingly snared a defensive rebound and converted two freebies on the other end after getting fouled to put the game away. GW once again made more free throws than the opposition attempted (8-7) and is within reach of accomplishing the feat for the season, having now connected on 519 tries from the charity stripe this season while limiting foes to 527 attempts.
