Box Score MOON, Penn. – The Sacred Heart University men's basketball team cut a 17 point second half lead to as little as six with 8:56 remaining, but Robert Morris closed the game on a, 22-8, run to pull away and win, 85-65, on Sunday afternoon at the Charles L. Sewall Center. Marcquise Reed and Lucky Jones combined for 46 points on 17-26 shooting, including 8-11 from beyond the arch, to help the Colonials improve to 8-10 overall and 4-2 in the Northeast Conference. De'von Barnett led the SHU with 21 points and six rebounds in the fourth straight loss and eighth in nine games for the Pioneers, who fall to 7-12 and 1-5 in the NEC.
RMU's lead was thirteen, 63-50, after a Reed jumper with 10:40 left. From there, Sacred Heart scored seven straight points to get within six. After Steve Glowiak drained a triple, Cane Broome converted a three-point play. Barnett's free throw with 8:56 remaining got SHU the closest it had been since the 5:43 mark of the first half.
The Colonials came back with four straight points before Broome made another layup to get back within eight with 7:54 on the clock. That would be the last time the lead would be single digits, as Robert Morris scored the next ten points. Reed tallied the first five, including beginning the flurry with a three-point play. Andre Frederick's layup with 3:47 showing made the score, 78-60.
Robert Morris shot 54.7 percent from the field (35-64), including a 19-31 (61.3 percent) performance in the first half to build a, 47-35, lead. The Colonials also outrebounded SHU by 14, 44-30 and went 8-17 (47.1 percent) from three-point range. Sacred Heart only shot 44.8 percent (26-58) and went 8-23 (34.8 percent) from the line.
SHU did not score in the first 2:55 of the second half to help RMU to jump out to a, 56-39, lead after a Pryor layup with 16:02 on the clock. The Pioneers would only get as close as eleven before they made the, 7-0, run. Broome made a layup with 11:15 to cut the deficit to, 61-50, before Reed's jumper brought the lead back to 13.
Evan Kelley scored early in the first half to become the 38th Sacred Heart player to amass 1,000 points for his career. He ended the game with nine points and three steals. Glowiak was the only other Pioneer in double figures, scoring twelve points on 4-9 shooting from beyond the arch. Phil Gaetano dished out a game-leading seven assists. Broome scored all nine of his points in the second half.
Jones recorded a double double with a game-high 11 rebounds to go along with his 22 points. Reed, along with Kavon Steward , had a team-high five assists. Also in double figures for the Colonials were Rodney Pryor and Aaron Tate with 15 and 10. The two also added seven and eight rebounds respectively.
The game got off to a frantic pace with both teams scoring ten each in the first 4:04. After a free throw, a Glowiak triple at the 15 minutes mark gave SHU its largest lead of the game, 14-10. From there, the Pioneers would score only one point over the next 6:14, and the Colonials capitalized with a, 12-1, surge highlighted by Reed's three with 9:28 remaining to bring the score to, 22-15.
Trading points the next few minutes, RMU's advantage reached double digits, 33-23, with 4:57 left in the half after a Pryor layup. The lead stayed from 8-10 the next couple of possessions, with Sacred Heart responding to every Colonial basket. After a Barnett dunk to get SHU within eight, 38-30, at the 2:29 mark, Robert Morris went on a, 9-2, spurt to take its largest lead of the half. Jones' trifecta, his fifth of the half, with just 33 seconds on the clock made the score, 47-32. Gaetano cut the deficit to, 47-35, with a three pointer just three seconds before the halftime buzzer
