Dessoye puts on clinic in five game homestand
This week’s Penn State Scranton Player of the Week honors go to senior, starting point guard, Matt Dessoye. Dessoye, who also serves as a team captain for the Lions Men’s Basketball team, put on scoring and passing clinic over the team’s recent five-game home stand, where Scranton went 3-2, including two key conference wins against visiting PSU DuBois and PSU Greater Allegheny. During this five-game stretch, the senior tallied an impressive 128 points, 30 assists and pulled in 17 rebounds.
In the Friday night contest vs PSU DuBois, Matt nearly notched a triple-double scoring 17 points, dishing seven assists and securing seven rebounds, where he went 5-11 from the floor, 1-2 from the 3-point line and 6-7 from the charity stripe in the 89-81 win. The next day, when PSU Greater Allegheny rolled in Dessoye continued his hot shooting from Friday night dropping a season-high 36 points, grabbing two rebounds, doling out three assists and snagging a steal on 13-20 shooting, including nailing 5-9 from deep and 5-6 at the line, leading the Lions to a 77-67 victory.
Matt continued his hot streak into the 5th Annual PSU Scranton Tip-Off Tournament as Scranton faced off against a tough SUNY ESF squad in the first-round contest. Despite falling short of the win 89-78, Dessoye poured in another 29 points shooting 12-20 from the field, including hitting 2-7 on 3-point attempts and going 3-3 on his trips to the line. He also added four assists, two steals and a rebound for Scranton. In the consolation game vs Central Penn College, Matt fell just one rebound shy of a double-double scoring a game-high 24 points, tallying nine assists, pulling in four boards and notching two steals on the night, to seal the 107-81 win for the Lions.
Rounding out the homestand, Scranton hosted PSU York as PSUAC conference play resumed following the Thanksgiving holiday, where Dessoye added another team leading performance in a tough 90-74 loss. In the game, Matt again narrowly missed a double-double with 22 points, seven assists and three rebounds. He shot 7-18, 2-5 from three and going a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line. During this five-game stretch Matt Dessoye shot a staggering 51.6% from the field going 45-89, 86.2% from the charity stripe missing just four shots on 29 attempts and 43.3% from downtown hitting 13 of 30 shots to help lead his team to a 4-5 overall record and a 2-2 conference record in early season play.