Box Score
SCRANTON, PA – In a season that has been littered with explosive starts but somewhat lackluster finishes, the same old dreaded plague struck the Crimson Eagle men’s basketball team once again Saturday afternoon.
Visiting Marywood University in what marked the group’s second-ever CSAC contest, PBU came out firing. Deadlocked at 17-all with just over nine minutes remaining in the opening stanza, the visitors used an 11-2 spurt capped by a high-flying “and-one” Tom Arthur dunk to go up 28-19 and take seeming control.
But the host squad had other plans.
Marywood closed out the opening period on a torrid 13-0 run over a span of 2:45 to take a 39-33 advantage into the intermission. The Pacers would continue their ultimately devastating spurt early in the second half, adding three more straight buckets to secure what ended up being 20 straight unanswered points. PBU never managed to recover.
The Crimson Eagles would cut the gap to as little as nine with just over 11 minutes remaining, but it seemed that every Crimson Eagle push was aptly met with a Marywood answer as the Pacers enjoyed a double-digit spread for the majority of the final stanza.
After connecting on 13 of 26 shot attempts in the opening period, PBU hit a somewhat woeful percentage during the back end of play (29.4 percent) and was crippled by a wretched afternoon from beyond the arc, hitting just two of 18 bombs for the game. The Crimson Eagles also surrendered 18 offensive rebounds and watched the Pacers drill 20-26 attempts from the charity stripe as Marywood cruised to their second win in conference action.
Senior forward Tom Arthur finished as the lone Crimson Eagle in double figures, pouring in over half of PBU’s point total with a career high 36 to go with 10 rebounds. Fourth-year guard Mike Phillips added eight points, hitting PBU’s only pair of triples for the game while senior guard Dan Schlegel added six points, three assists, and two steals.
The Crimson Eagles drop to 1-8 (0-2 CSAC) with the loss while Marywood improves to 8-4 (3-2 CSAC).
PBU will have little time to recuperate as the group hosts Immaculata University this Monday in the Mason Activity Center at 7:00 pm.
