FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The Fairleigh Dickinson men's basketball team fell 77-60 to Sacred Heart at the William H. Pitt Center on Saturday afternoon.
 
Redshirt junior guard Xzavier Malone-Key paced the Knights (4-15, 2-6 NEC) with 14 points, five rebounds and two assists. Senior forward Kaleb Bishop and sophomore guard Brandon Powell joined Malone-Key in double figures with 13 and 10 points, respectively. 

With his third point of the afternoon, Bishop became the 30th Knight to eclipse 1,000 career points, joining teammate Jahlil Jenkins, who accomplished the feat earlier this month.

On the accomplishment of his senior forward, head coach Greg Herenda said, "I have to congratulate Kaleb on his 1,000th point. His improvement from high school to this very day is really amazing. I am so proud of Kaleb and how he has worked on his game and matured into a truly great student-athlete. He has done so much here at Fairleigh Dickinson and obviously his career is far from over."
 
Five Pioneers (12-9, 5-3 NEC) scored in double figures led by Koreem Ozier's 16 points. E.J. Anosike double-doubled with 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Kinnon La Rose scored 11 and made three from downtown. Anosike's rebounding effort helped lead the home team to a 40-25 advantage on the glass.
 
The Knights shot 43 percent overall and made 3-of-12 from three-point range, while the Pioneers hit 50 percent from the field and 9-of-26 from deep.

"I've always told my teams that home teams on Saturday afternoons usually win about 70 percent of the time and you have to do something special to reverse that," Herenda continued. "Today, we did not do anything special enough to win this game. I might sound crazy but I thought we did a lot of good things today but we just could not put anything consistently together. This team still has the potential to do something special -- I really believe that."
 
The Pioneers started red hot from the field, converting seven of their first nine, including 4-of-6 from three-point range en route to a 19-9 lead.
 
After the home team's lead grew to 15 points, the Knights chipped away and closed to within four, 34-30, after Malone-Key stripped a Pioneer and finished a pull-up jumper at the other end of the floor.
 
Despite the Knights' surge, they would still enter the locker room trailing 40-32 after LaRose sank a 3-pointer as the halftime buzzer sounded. The Knights shot 41 percent overall, while the Pioneers made 62.5 percent (15-of-24) and 7-of-14 from behind the arc in the stanza.
 
Malone-Key and Jenkins paced the Knights with eight-first half points. Tyler Thomas hit 4-of-5 in the half for the Pioneers and led all scorers with 11 points at the break.
 
The Knights scuffled to begin the second half, logging just one point over the first five minutes as the Pioneers rebuilt their 15-point lead, 48-33. The slow start proved to be too much for the Burgundy and Blue to overcome as the Pioneers maintained control for the win.
 
The Knights conclude their three-game road trip on Thursday, January 30 when they take on Wagner in Staten Island, N.Y.