HACKENSACK, N.J. – The Fairleigh Dickinson men's basketball team cut a 16-point, second-half deficit down to three but was unable to surpass St. Francis Brooklyn in a 76-70 loss at the Rothman Center on Thursday night.
 
Sophomore Kaleb Bishop recorded his first career double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds and the Knights (6-14, 3-6 NEC) featured four players in double figures led by junior guard Darnell Edge's 18 points and a career-high 17 points by freshman guard Jahlil Jenkins.
 
FDU forward Mike Holloway Jr. narrowly missed a double-double by scoring 14 points with nine rebounds to go along with three blocked shots.
 
Bishop's 13 points came on an efficient 5-of-7 shooting performance in his 31 minutes of action and Jenkins was 5-of-11 including 3-of-7 from three-point range.
 
The Knights, who boast a +2.3 turnover-margin, committed 12 first-half turnovers and 19 in total, while only nabbing one steal in the loss. Entering the game, the team ranked 14^th in the nation with 8.5 steals per contest.
 
The Terriers (9-12, 6-3 NEC) started red-hot from downtown, connecting on seven of their first nine from distance and finished 10-of-24 from behind the arc. Despite losing the rebound battle 34-29, the Terriers' ball control led to 12 more field goal attempts than the Knights as they totaled 26-of-59 (44.1 percent) compared to FDU's 23-of-47 (48.9 percent).
 
Sophomore guard Rasheem Dunn scored 18 to pace the Terriers and added six rebounds and six assists to his ledger, while freshman guard Chauncey Hawkins scored 16 on 4-of-6 shooting and 6-of-8 at the line.
 
"We played the team that is arguably playing the best basketball in our league right now and we simply never played at their level tonight," said head coach Greg Herenda following the loss.
 
"We fought hard to have the ball with a chance to take the lead late in the game but made a costly turnover. St. Francis was just the better team tonight."
 
It was a sluggish start for the Knights as they missed their first five field goals before Jenkins finally ended the drought with a layup at the 12-minute mark. The Knights also committed five miscues over that span but a 5-for-6 start at the line helped weather the storm as they trailed 11-7 at the under-12 media timeout.
 
The Terriers offense found its stroke, connecting on 7-of-9 from downtown as they opened up a 30-17 lead with six minutes to play in the half. Hawkins and Josh Nicholas led the charge by totaling five 3-pointers over the blistering start. Nicholas finished with 11 points on the night.
 
With Holloway's work inside serving as the catalyst, the Knights trimmed the lead to six with just under three to go in the stanza.
 
Despite the Terriers' three-point performance in the first half, the Knights would enter the locker room within single digits, 37-30. Over those first 20 minutes, the Terriers were 8-of-14 from behind the arc and 14-of-32 (43.8 percent) overall, while the Knights shot 8-fo-17 overall and took care of business at the charity stripe where they connected on 14-of-15 (93.3 percent).
 
Holloway's nine points and five rebounds topped the Knights' box score in the half, while Jenkins had seven. Nicholas paced the Terriers with nine at the break and Hawkins and Dunn each had eight.
 
The Terriers began the second half right where they left off as Jagos Lasic connected with a 3-pointer for the team's first bucket.
 
With the long-ball falling, the Terriers would stretch their lead to as large as 16, 56-40, with 15 minutes to play.
 
A resounding putback slam and a 3-pointer by Bishop helped the Knights close to within single-digits again, 64-56 at the under-eight media timeout.
 
Bishop later canned a jumper, which capped a 14-4 run by the Knights and made it a 68-65 game with 3:40 to go but FDU would not get any closer as the Terriers nabbed three timely offensive rebounds inside of two minutes to maintain possession and closed the game out at the line.
 
Herenda closed his postgame quotes by saying, "Now we have a quick turnaround to get ready to win a conference road game and we need to play much better in every phase of the game to do that. We have to harden up and make the tough basketball plays that are necessary to win college basketball games and tonight we simply did not make enough of them."
 
The Knights are back in action on Saturday when they take on the Bryant Bulldogs. Tip-off is set for 1:00 p.m. in Smithfield, Rhode Island.