PHILADELPHIA, PA – Coming into the game against a foe that has spent the last decade or so at the bottom of the NJAC cellar, the Crimson Eagles found out early Tuesday evening that this year’s version of the Rutgers-Camden men’s basketball team isn’t quite what it once was.

In fact, they’re much better.

The Scarlet-Raptors used a potent offensive attack to run past the Crimson Eagles Tuesday night, shooting at a 53.4 percent clip for the game to post a 78-51 victory at Philadelphia Community College.

"We struggled off the tip to get going," noted interim head coach Jared Yoder following the contest. "Sometimes you have off nights in the game of basketball, and unfortunately this was probably one of our nights. Rutgers did a good job of not letting us get in a flow offensively and had spurts where we couldn't stop them on the defensive end."

It marks the second straight game to start the season that the Crimson Eagles have surrendered 78 points defensively, the first coming in a 78-53 loss to Eastern College over the weekend.

On Tuesday, Scarlet-Raptor senior guard Bill Banks had a career night, scorching PBU for 18 first half points to finish with a career high of 25 on the night off of 10 for 13 shooting. Banks highlighted a deadly Rutgers long-range attack, going four for four from beyond the arc to help the host squad shoot 57.1 percent (8 for 14) from deep.

Rutgers jumped out to an early lead, going ahead 9-4 to kick off the first five minutes of play. Back-to-back jumpers from senior forward Tom Arthur cut the deficit to within one at 9-8, but would soon cue an lethal Raptor run that would leave PBU in a 14 point hole midway through the opening period.

After bringing things to as close as 29-16 with 6:23 left, Banks soon took over, knocking down three straight buckets to help extend the host squad’s lead to 16 before the break.

"Banks is a tough player," Yoder said. "There was a couple of stretches that he really killed us and managed to hit several big shots that stopped any type of run we tried to put together."

It was much of the same story in the latter part of the second period. PBU would get as close as 13 but failed to make any significant push during the back end of play as the Scarlet-Raptors utilized a 23-9 advantage in points off turnovers for the game and a 28-16 edge regarding points in the paint to walk away with the 27 point win.

Senior Tom Arthur led PBU with 16 points and five boards, while junior swingman Willie Miller finished as the only other player in double figures with 14 points and 10 boards. Senior guard Dan O'Brien chipped in with eight points on two of five shooting from downtown.

"It's a long season," said Yoder. "We got beat by a much improved team that I can guarentee will surprise some people this year. Our goal is to just keep improving at this point."

The Crimson Eagles will resume play this weekend heading west to play in the Geneva College Tournament, opening up against the host squad on Friday at 8:00 pm. The team will proceed to play the following afternoon against either Penn State New Kensington or Mount Union College at a time to be determined.