Though history will be on tap for a pair of individuals on the Clarkson Men's Basketball team this weekend, the Golden Knights larger mission is to reach the conference tournament, and the stretch of home games starting this weekend might prove to be the medicine that the Green and Gold needs to jump back into the playoff race.
The Golden Knights enter the weekend at 8-7 overall and 2-4 in the Liberty League, and they will be taking on a pair of formidable foes in RIT (10-5, 4-2) and Hobart (13-4, 7-1) this Friday and Saturday at Alumni Gymnasium.
Senior Marques Charlton (Deer Park, NY) and John Coleman (Potsdam, NY) both look to join a list of 17 others as 1,000-point scorers in their collegiate careers on Friday. Both players are just four points short of the mark and could make history on Friday. A few teammates across the nation have scored their 1,000th points in the same game, and even fewer have done so in the same half, but Charlton and Coleman have a chance of making it happen on consecutive possessions, though that is a long shot and the game will play itself out in normal fashion since both players reaching the milestone is an inevitability over the weekend. Coleman leads the team in scoring at 18.8 points per game and has recorded double figures in every game this year, including nine games over 20 points. Charlton is second in the team with 16.8 ppg and is the author of the team's season-high with 33 points earlier this year. He has come up short of double digits in just one game this season.
The pair will be counted upon for their scoring this weekend as the Tigers and Statesmen both will provide stiff challenges for the Golden Knights. Clarkson is just 26-47 overall against RIT, but have won four straight by an average of nearly 11 points per game since the Tigers joined the Liberty League two years ago. RIT has no true go-to scorer, as three players average better than 12 points per game. J.P. Reagan leads teh team at 12.5 ppg while Jameel Balenton and Kamron Davis each score 12.1 ppg.
Clarkson was the only Liberty League team to beat Hobart in 2012-13, accomplishing the feat by just one point at Alumni Gym early on in the conference season. Hobart and Clarkson's history is long, as the two teams have met 118 times with the Statesmen winning 68 times to the Knights' 50 victories. Hobart is near the top of numerous offensive categories in the Liberty League thanks to a strong senior class led by forward Richie Bonney. Averaging 19.5 points and 11.4 rebounds per game, Bonney has done little to alter coaches' views of him as one of the top players in the conference. Junior Connor Rehbaum is scoring 15.6 points per game and senior Joe Gibbons is averaging 15.2 points per contest. Bonney and Gibbons rank second and third, respectively, in the league in field goal percentage, behind only Clarkson's Coleman. In fact, in Saturday's game, six of the top 12 scorers in the Liberty League will be in action (Clarkson's John Coleman, Marques Charlton and Felix Abongo along with Hobart's Richie Bonney, Connor Rehbaum, and Joe Gibbons).
