James Mathis had a career-high 21 points, but it wasn’t enough for the Niagara University Purple Eagles, who dropped a 98-92 double-overtime decision to the Siena Saints in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game before 7,181 fans at the Pepsi Arena on Saturday.

Mathis, who had 15 rebounds, and Clif Brown registered double-doubles for the Purple Eagles (10-17 overall, 7-11 MAAC). Brown had 19 points and 13 rebounds for Niagara. Lorenzo Miles had 26 points for NU, while J.R. Duffey had 16 points.

“I’ve never been prouder of these guys,” Niagara coach Joe Mihalich said. “They played their hearts out.”

Kenny Hasbrouck led Siena (15-12, 10-8) with 25 points.

Niagara will now wait to see who it will play in the first round of the MAAC Tournament on Friday at the Pepsi Arena.

“We can’t wait to play here again, I wish we could stay,” Mihalich said. One of our goals is to be a team that no one wants to play in the tourney. I certainly think that’s the case.”

• The Niagara women’s basketball team wraps up a disastrous regular season when it hosts Canisius in a MAAC game at 2 p.m. today at the Gallagher Center.

Niagara (3-23 overall, 2-15 MAAC) needs to beat the second-place Golden Griffins (16-10, 13-4) to escape from the MAAC basement. Currently, the Purple Eagles are tied with Rider, which hosts conference-leading Marist today.

Canisius would wrap up second place with a win over Niagara today.

The MAAC women’s tournament gets under way Thursday morning at the Pepsi Arena in Albany.

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