GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Davenport University men's basketball team will play its final home game of the 2021-22 season on Monday when it plays host to Northwood at 8 p.m. The very next night, the Panthers will hit the road to Midland and face the Timberwolves again with the opening tip scheduled for 7 p.m.
•   Grand Valley State 71, Davenport 67: Marcedus Leech Jr. hit a three-pointer from the wing with just 1:18 to play that put Davenport ahead of Grand Valley State by two, 67-65, Thursday night inside the DU Student Center. However, the Panthers wouldn't score again and the Lakers ended the game with a 6-0 run to steal the win away from the home team, 71-67. Next up,
Leech Jr. secured the first double-double of his career thanks to a team-high 17 points and career-best 12 rebounds to go with three steals (game high), two assists and a block. Also scoring in double-figures for Davenport were
Chris Rollins with 14 and
Jarrin Randall with 11. Rollins dished out seven assists (game high) and
Luke Maranka racked up seven blocks, which is a new school record.
The game saw a total of six ties and nine lead changes, all of which came in the game's final 12 minutes, and Davenport led by as many as eight points at 10-2 and 41-33. Once it was 62-59 in favor of the Panthers, Maranka hit a jumper in the paint to put his team up five, 64-59, with just over four minutes on the clock. The Lakers then responded with six-straight points to regain the advantage, 65-64, before Leech Jr.'s go-ahead triple at the 1:18 mark.
Davenport held Grand Valley State to just 33.3 percent shooting (24-of-72) for the game, but the Lakers racked up 57 rebounds to the Panthers' 35, including a staggering 24-6 advantage on the offensive glass. Because of that, Grand Valley State scored 25 second-chance points to Davenport's three. All of the other team head-to-head scoring categories including points off turnovers, bench points, points in the paint, and fast-break points were decided by three points or less.
Playing without its best player in Jake Van Tubbergen (only player in the league averaging a double-double), Grand Valley State turned to Isaac Gassman who finished with a game-high 24 points on 7-of-17 shooting to go with seven rebounds in 38 minutes on the court. Trevon Gunter finished with 13 points and Christian Negron added 11 accompanied by 12 boards.
•   Scouting the Timberwolves: Northwood features four scorers that are averaging at least 10 points per game including Jack Ammerman (16.3), Trevor Davis (12.0), Maurion Scott (11.3), and DeSean Munson (11.3). With that being said, Davis hasn't played a game since Dec. 2 against Northern Michigan. Munson is the Timberwolves top rebounder with 7.6 per game while both Ramelle Arnold and Quentin Richardson are each putting up 2.0 assists per contest. Davis was averaging 4.2 per outing and Richardson, who's no longer on the roster, hasn't played since Dec. 20 at Hillsdale. As a team, three of the Timberwolves four wins have come at home. GLIAC wise, they're 10th/11 teams in scoring offense (67.6) and 11th/11 squads in scoring defense (81.8). They come into these two games against Davenport having lost four games in a row and 15 of their last 16.
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