Men's Basketball | 12/5/2014 8:13:00 PM
Box Score ROCHESTER, NY – The sixth seeded RIT men's basketball team (5-2) fell behind early and could not recover, falling to No. 7 seed Nazareth College (2-2), 71-66 in the second round of the 49th annual Wendy's College Classic on Friday night from the Palestra on the campus of the University of Rochester.
The Tigers never led and trailed by as many as 15 in both halves. RIT went on big runs towards the end of each half, but just could not get past the Golden Flyers. RIT tried putting the Golden Flyers on the line earlier than normal late in regulation, but Nazareth shot 19-of-29 from the line in the second half to hang on.
Sophomore guard
Joe Stortini (Red Hook, NY/Loomis Chaffee) scored a career-high 17 points, 12 coming in the first half to go along with five boards and a pair of steals.
AJ Horde (Oak Park, MI/University of Detroit Jesuit) was the only other Tiger in double figures, with 14 points, five boards, three assists, and three steals.
"Our effort defensively was what we were looking for and we created offensive opportunities from that," said RIT head coach
Bob McVean. "We got some good performances from different players offensively, but are still out of sync at times. We have a young team and it is still early in the season, but we have to make better decisions at crucial times."
Nazareth out-rebounded RIT, 42-34, including 23-14 in the second half. Seven of those boards came on the offensive end. Both teams shot just under 40 percent for the game, RIT at 39.7 and Nazareth, 39.6. Nazareth had 17 turnovers, while RIT had 16. The big difference was from the foul line, where Nazareth had 43 opportunities to just 19 for the Tigers.
Josh Gillard led all scorers with 18 points for the Golden Flyers, drilling four 3-pointers. Maurice Mills added 16 points, six boards, four steals, and two blocks, while Nick Nadeau was 9-for-12 from the free-throw line en route to 16 points, six boards, and three assists.
Down 58-43 with 8:36 left, RIT used a 9-0 run over the next two minutes to cut the lead to six. RIT had a great chance to make it a four-point game, when Horde penetrated and found
Casey Bobelis (Bradenton, FL/Braden River) inside, but he could not convert and Nazareth would score the next three points. RIT would get as close as 66-63 on a
Sheldon Clay (Detroit, MI/University of Detroit Jesuit) layup with 1:10 left, but Nazareth would hit 5-of-6 free throws late to ice it.
Bobelis would come off the bench and along with
Matt Gundrum (East Meadow, NY/East Meadow) and
Anthony Lewis (Rochester, NY/Churchville-Chili) provide a spark on both ends of the court. Bobelis had eight points and three boards, while
Kamron Davis (Syracuse, NY/Nottingham) had a team-high seven rebounds to go along with six points. After scoreless first halves,
Mitch Herman (Webster, NY/Webster Schroeder) and
JP Reagan (Cortland, NY/Cortland) would both drain a pair of second half 3-pointers for RIT.
RIT struggled to get going offensively early in the first half and trailed by as many as 15 on two occasions, but ended on a 10-1 run over the final 2:50 to trail Nazareth, 37-31 at the break.
Stortini came out firing and led RIT in the first half with 12 points on 3-of-6 shooting from the floor with a pair of 3-pointers. Despite Stortini's strong play, the Tigers shot just 11-for-31 (35.5 percent) from the field and were just 3-of-13 from 3-point range.
The Tigers struggled to stop Gillard in the opening half, as he led all scorers with 13 points, draining three from behind the arc, as he gave the Golden Flyers their largest lead, 36-21 with a pair of free throws with 2:50 left.
The Tigers are now 36-30 all-time against the Golden Flyers. Nazareth has won two straight against RIT, also defeating them in the Wendy's Classic last season.
The Tigers conclude play at the Wendy's Classic against Hobart College in the seventh place game on Saturday from the campus of SUNY Geneseo at 1 p.m.
