Box Score

The Fairleigh Dickinson men's basketball team dropped its 13th consecutive decision Saturday evening as they fell on the road to St. Francis NY, 62-51, at the Pope Physical Education Center in Brooklyn, NY.  With the victory, the Terriers improve to 8-9 (5-1 NEC) on the season, while the Knights fall to 1-15 (0-6 NEC) overall.

Junior Melquan Bolding (Mt. Vernon, N.Y./Bishop Stepinac) led the Knights with 15 points (14 in the first half).  Graduate student George Goode (Raytown, MO/Raytown South) and junior Kinu Rochford (Brooklyn, N.Y./James Madison) both added 12 points and a team-high nine rebounds.

The Knights, who led 34-32, at halftime, came out ice cold in the second half as they scored only one point in the first eight minutes of the second half coupled with a scoring drought that lasted nearly seven minutes.  SFNY outscored the Knights, 14-3, over that time to take a 46-37 lead with 11:38 remaining in the game.

Junior Lonnie Robinson (Deerfield Beach, Fla./Deerfield Beach)'s jumper with 5:31 to go cut the deficit to 52-47, but that was the closest FDU would get the rest of the way. 
The Terriers answered with eight straight points and eventually a 10-1 run which gave them their largest lead of the game at 62-48 with 1:48 left in the contest.

After shooting 56.5 percent (13-of-23) over the first 20 minutes, the Knights had trouble making shots in the second half as they only shot 25.9 percent (7-of-27) from the floor and missed all seven of their three-point attempts to finish the game 3-of-13 from behind the arc.  For the game, FDU shot 40 percent (20-of-50) from the field.

SFNY started the game with eight quick points before a short jumper by Goode put the Knights on the board at the 17:01 mark of the first half.

Down 12-4, FDU began to claw its way back.  The Knights scored 10 of the next 12 points as two free throws by Bolding tied the game at 14 with 10:07 to go before halftime.

Bolding then canned a three to give FDU its first lead of the game at 17-14.  Then senior Briahn Smith (Detroit, MI/Madison) stole the ball and found a streaking Mouhamed Lo (Port Chester, NY/Port Chester ) down the floor for a layup to extend the lead to 19-14.

With 7:48 left in the first half, Bolding knocked down another three to give the Knights their largest lead of the game at 22-15 and capped off an 18-3 run for the visitors.

The Terriers scored the next five points to cut the lead to 22-20, but FDU responded with a mini 8-3 run with Rochford's layup put the Knights back up seven at 30-23 with 3:59 remaining before halftime.

SFNY was then able to outscore the Knights by five to cut the FDU lead to 34-32 at halftime.

The Terriers also shot well in the first half as they went 12-of-23 (52.2 percent) from the field including 4-of-11 from three-point range.  Both teams went to the line six times with the Knights making five free throws and SFNY making four.

However, as FDU went cold in the second half, the Terriers did not go nearly as cold as they managed to shoot 42.1 percent (8-of-19) despite only going 2-of-7 from long range in the second half.  SFNY finished the game shooting 47.6 percent (20-of-42) and 33.3 percent (6-of-18) from three.

The Terriers also made all 12 of their free throws in the second half to finish the game shooting 16-of-18 from the line.  The Knights only made 3-of-8 over the final 20 minutes to finish 8-of-14.

The Knights limited their turnovers once again with only 12.  They forced SFNY into 14 turnovers with eight of them being steals.  Rochford recorded three of the steals.  The Terriers out-rebounded the Knights, 28-26.

“Defensively, I thought we played better,” Head Coach Greg Vetrone said.  “Offensively, we keep hurting ourselves by missing close shots.  We need to do a much better job of finishing when we are close to the basket.”

Brent Jones came off the bench for SFNY to lead the Terriers with 15 points.  Stefan Perunicic added 11 points, while Jalen Cannon chipped in 10 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.

The Knights will once again have a quick turnaround as they complete the non-conference portion of their schedule with a home game against Longwood Monday afternoon.  Tip-off at Stratis Arena is schedule for 2:00 p.m. in Hackensack, NJ.