GAME NOTES: The Canisius Golden Griffins try to snap a two-game slide on Saturday afternoon, as they clash with in-state rival Buffalo in the Big 4 Basketball Classic at the First Niagara Center.

Since defeating Vermont and Lehigh to kick off the season, Canisius has dropped two in a row, both on the road and in New York. The most recent setback was a 67-60 decision versus Cornell in Ithaca three nights ago.

As for the Bulls, they should be on to their sixth game of the campaign, but a meeting with Montana State at home last week was postponed due to an early- season snowstorm that crippled the Buffalo area. The team is 3-1 at the moment however, thanks to an 80-64 defeat of Grand Canyon earlier this week in Phoenix.

The series between these two familiar foes favors the Griffs by a count of 27-15, thanks to two straight wins over Buffalo, including last season's 69-55 victory in this same facility.

Out in the desert, Justin Moss scored a career-high 26 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the floor as the Bulls easily defeated the Antelopes on the road. Also scoring in double figures were Shannon Evans with 23 points and Jarryn Skeete with 14, the former accounting for half the unit's 14 assists and Moss clearing a team-high nine rebounds for the squad as it held Grand Canyon to about 33 percent shooting from the floor.

Through four games, all of which he has started, Moss leads the team in scoring with 17.5 ppg and is also tops on the glass with 8.5 rpg, although the one deficiency in his game is a lack of passing, or to be more precise, having zero assists in 115 minutes of action. Evans checks in with 16.5 ppg and Skeete another 11.8 ppg as the team generates 68.8 ppg, which is only slightly better than the 67.5 ppg being surrendered.

Several starters for the Golden Griffins shot poorly in the meeting with Cornell, which is just one of the reasons why Canisius came out on the losing end at Newman Arena. Off the bench it was Jermaine Crumpton with a team-best 15 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the field, followed by Zach Lewis with 14 points and four steals, but he turned the ball over five times and shot only 5-of-15 before fouling out. Also picking up his fifth personal was Jeremiah Williams who tallied 10 points in a reserve role for a team that shot just 33.3 percent from the field.

Through four games, Canisius is producing only 60.0 ppg as the unit shoots a dismal 34.2 percent from the field. The good news however, is that the competition is also struggling from the floor (.386), and is scoring an average of only 59.2 ppg. Lewis is the lone double-digit scorer with 13.5 ppg, but one could only imagine how much better he and the team would be doing if not for his miserable 31.1 percent accuracy.

Even though this is a non-conference rivalry game, Canisius simply hasn't shown enough in the early going to make it a series competitor at the moment.