Box Score

NEW YORK - Senior leadership in the overtime period Thursday night at the Max Stern Athletic Center carried the Yeshiva University men's basketball team, as upperclassman Dovie Hoffman (Tarzana, Calif.; 14 pts.) buried the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:06 left, and a pair of free throws by classmate Gil Bash (Tel Aviv, Israel; team-high 20 pts., 8-for-13 FG, 5 asst.) with 3.2 seconds to go sealed the host Maccabees' second-straight win and fifth in its last six outings, 66-62, over previously once-beaten John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

YU (6-6) used a scorching 20-4 run early on in the first half after falling behind by a pair, and stretched its lead to as many as 21 points (31-10, 4:24 remaining) en route to a 37-19 halftime advantage. The Maccabees shot a blistering .708 from the field (17-for-24) in the period, and used its passing game to amass 16 assists in that span.

The visiting Bloodhounds (5-2), tied for the top mark in the City University of New York Athletic Conference, scored 10 of the first 11 points of the second half, as well as 22 of the first 27, to pull within one at 42-41, with 12:36 remaining in regulation. A Kris Owens trifecta knotted the game for the first time since it was 2-2 (17:34, 1st) with 11:40 left, and Jamar Harry's (game-high 26 pts.) jumper in the paint 1:08 later brought the teams even once again at 46-all.

Hoffman and Bash combined for five of the next six points of the contest, all by the hosts, to push long-time head coach Dr. Jonathan Halpert's side in front by a 52-46 margin with 7:15 showing on the scoreboard. After the two teams traded a pair of points apiece, John Jay scored the next eight points of the contest to go up by two with under 20 seconds to go. Harry's lay-in with 1:25 left off a feed from Darryl Dennis gave JJC its first lead (55-54) since it converted a bucket for the first two points of the game early on. Dennis then made one of two shots from the charity stripe with 19 seconds left, before fouling Hoffman on the rebound of the second effort. Hoffman only converted the second of his two freebies two seconds later, pulling the hosts within a 56-55 margin. John Jay missed the front end of a one-and-one with roughly 12 seconds to go, before Hoffman made the second of his free throws with six ticks remaining to knot the game at 56-all. The Bloodhounds' Isaiah Holman, who entered with the top 3-point field goal percentage in NCAA Division III, got a trifecta off at the regulation horn, but saw the shot rim out to send the game into extra time.

John Jay took a two-point lead 75 seconds into the extra session, before junior Shlomo Weissberg (Skokie, Ill.; nine pts., game-high nine reb.) knocked down one at the charity stripe to pull YU to within a 58-57 score with 3:19 left. Holman (13 pts.) sank two from the line six seconds later to push the Bloodhounds in front by a triple, before Hoffman's pair with 2:56 to go pulled the score within one (JJC, 60-59) once more. Freshman Yosef Rosenthal's (W. Hempstead, N.Y.) put-back layup for his only bucket of the game gave Yeshiva the lead, 61-60, with 1:53 on the clock, before Harry followed up with a lay-in of his own 19 seconds later. Hoffman took a pass from Bash at the top of the key with the shot clock under 10 seconds, and knocked down his only triple of the game with 1:06 to go, pushing the Maccabees in front for good, 64-62. Dennis's long ball in JJC's next trip down the court rebounded off the backboard support bars, but Bash was called for an offensive foul late in the shot clock with roughly 16 seconds remaining in Yeshiva's ensuing trip down the court. Owens got off a 3-ball for the Bloodhounds with five seconds to play, but Bash pulled down the defensive board and calmly sank his two charity-stripe efforts with 3.2 remaining to ice the contest.

Junior Benjy Ritholtz (W. Hempstead, N.Y.) had 15 points (7-for-12 FG) and seven rebounds for the hosts, who held a 38-31 edge on the glass.

Yeshiva wraps up the 2012 calendar-year portion of its schedule at Max Stern Athletic Center on Saturday night (Dec. 29), when it welcomes Brooklyn College for an 8:30 p.m., non-conference tilt.