The men's basketball team's four-game winning streak ended over the weekend with a 49-93 loss to then first-place SUNY Oswego on Jan. 24 and a 67-71 loss to SUNY Brockport on Jan. 28.
Sophomore Connor Fedge led the Knights with 22 points in the loss to the Lakers. Only first year Gordon Lyons, who shot 1-9 from beyond the arc, and Fedge reached double-digits for Geneseo.
"We weren't very strong offensively against [Oswego] to say the least, but defensively we did well," said head coach Steve Minton. "We tried to control the pace of the game and not let it get into the 80s where we would need to score a lot of points and we did that, but we didn't execute offensively."
Against Brockport, the two teams shot nearly identically from the field, with Geneseo at 49 percent and the Golden Eagles at 47 percent. Brockport was far more effective beyond the arc, however, going 7-20, while the Knights were 2-9.
"The Brockport loss wasn't a bad loss at all. These games against Brockport are wars. Top to bottom, this conference is as strong as I've seen it," said Minton.
With seven games remaining on the schedule and four at home, Geneseo will play only two games against teams currently ahead of them in the standings. Those two games will be against Oswego and Buffalo State College, who the Knights took down in an overtime thriller earlier in mid-January.
"We aren't just looking to get in the playoffs. We want a home game," said Minton. "There are no good first-round matchups in this conference. Brockport beat us and Fredonia beat us at home. We need to take advantage of the remaining games on the schedule to create some separation in the standings from the teams chasing us."
It also helps that at such a key point in the season, coach Minton believes that he is getting the deepest production out of his lineup.
"[Junior Ryan] Riefenhauser and [sophomore Jordan] Jones have been great, but [sophomore] Matt Curry and Lyons have really stepped up their game as of late, scoring and rebounding," said Minton. "Fedge has been getting to the basket and defending. We are a deep team at this point of the season."
This weekend Geneseo will get the chance to separate itself from the rest of the competitors. On Friday Feb. 3, the Knights host SUNY New Paltz, who currently sits seventh in the conference with a 5-7 record. The following day the Knights take on last-place SUNY Oneonta.