Men's Basketball: Mount suffers bad loss

EMMITSBURG - During a mostly successful season that has included wins over two of the top three teams in the Northeast Conference and nice non-conference victories against American and Bucknell, Mount St. Mary's has also thrown in a few clunkers.

Having already lost to UMBC, UMES and Binghamton - three of the bottom 25 teams in the Division I Ratings Percentage Index - the Mount lost to a fourth on Thursday night in perhaps the biggest head-scratcher of them all.

Playing to secure a home game in the NEC tournament against Sacred Heart, the league's last-place team and losers of 12 in a row, the ice-cold Mountaineers lost 72-65 at Knott Arena.

"The reality of it is, how we play, it's all about matchups. They're a very difficult matchup," MSM coach Jamion Christian said. "At UMBC, we didn't have good matchups against them. UMES, we didn't have good matchups against them. Most of the time, teams that play really small, can really attack our pressure and break our press and get to the front of the rim.

"The lucky thing for us is the majority of the teams that are very good in our league don't play that way."

The Mountaineers (12-16, 8-7 NEC) are tied for fourth in the league with St. Francis Brooklyn, but will still clinch at least fourth place and an NEC tourney home game with a win on Saturday against St. Francis (Pa.) in their regular-season finale. They can even still finish third with a win and a Bryant loss.

But they'll almost certainly need to shoot better and defend better than they did on Thursday.

The Mountaineers shot 32.1 percent from the field, a season-low against NEC competition, going 7 for 29 (24.1 percent) on 3-pointers. The Pioneers scored 52 points in the paint, going inside at will with the Mount's post players in foul trouble for much of the game, and finished with a 58.0 field goal percentage.

"They outplayed us tonight in just about every facet," said Christian, who nonetheless said Thursday's performance didn't worry him. "I'm not concerned at all. We have a great team. We have guys who are really excited about the opportunity to have a home game. They understand the importance of it. And because of that I know we're going to be ready to go on Saturday - probably a little more angry than usual, which may be a good thing for our team."

Julian Norfleet scored 17 points and eight assists, Byron Ashe had 13 points and Rashad Whack finished with 12 points and five steals. But the Mount's senior trio of Norfleet, Whack and Sam Prescott shot 7 for 31 and 4 of 19 on 3-pointers.

"The shots weren't falling and we could never get the key stop we needed," said Norfleet, who went down with a left ankle injury and conceded it was "a little bit" painful and "in the back of my mind" the rest of the way.

Freshman De'Von Barnett scored 24 points on 12-of-16 shooting and also grabbed seven rebounds for Sacred Heart (5-25, 2-13), which hadn't won since Jan. 11.

Things began well enough for the Mount, with Whack hitting a 3-pointer on the game's first possession. It took less than six minutes for the heavily-favored Mountaineers to build a double-digit lead, it was 19-8 with 12 minutes to go in the first half, and it was still 21-12 when Sacred Heart went on a quick 7-0 spurt to get back into it. The Mountaineers didn't convert a single field goal over the final 6:44, missing eight shots from the field and committing three turnovers as Sacred Heart finished the half on a 13-4 run to take a 32-28 lead into the break despite committing 15 first-half turnovers.

The Mountaineers hit their first three shots of the second half and actually reclaimed the lead when Gregory Graves (12 points) converted a 3-point play with 15:40 to go. An alley-oop from Norfleet to Graves had the game tied at 46-46 with 11:55 left, but the Mountaineers then missed five straight 3-pointers. Christian didn't question the shot selection.

"We take a lot of 3s. That's sort of the nature of how we play. And sometimes that's going to bite you," Christian said. "Tonight that was able to bite us. But, you know, that's won us a lot of games here over the last two years."

After Graves' dunk, the Mount made only one field goal over the next 10 minutes. Meanwhile, with big men Graves and Taylor Danaher saddled with four fouls each, Sacred Heart drove the lane for layups on nearly every possession. The Mountaineers never got closer than six points over the final six minutes.

Christian said he didn't think his team overlooked the Pioneers, who came in with an RPI of 341 out of the 351 teams in Division I.

"I thought our guys were ready," he said. "I thought our guys had a lot respect for them."

Christian, Norfleet and Whack were all in agreement about how the Mountaineers will react to the bad loss.

"We always preach re-setting ourself," Whack said. "After tonight we just forget about it and move on to the next opponent, and stay confident because we've had a great year so far."