Medgar Evers Defeats Bears With Strong Second Half

BROOKLYN, NY – Cross-borough rivals Medgar Evers outscored the St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) men's basketball team 47-29 in the second half to break a tie game at halftime and hand the Bears their fourth straight loss in an 84-66 decision on Sunday afternoon.

St. Joseph's (8-12) was led by freshman David Louison (Brooklyn, NY/St. Edmund's Prep) who netted 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting and pulled down a team-high eight rebounds.  Junior Jan Rogowski (Woodside, NY/St. John's Prep) tallied 18 points on 8-of-15 shooting with five boards.  Senior Antoine Forehand (New York, NY/Rice) chipped in 10 points, rounding out the Bears in double figures.

Medgar Evers (14-8) was led by the duo of Winston Douglas and Jovan Deare, who produced 20-point double-doubles, Douglas scoring a game-high 26 points and Deare adding 22 and both grabbing 10 rebounds each to share game-high honors.  Deare also went 10-for-10 from the charity stripe as the Cougars shot an efficient 85 percent (23-of-27) from the free throw line.  Brian Johnson added 14 points and Kayode Prime tacked on 12.

The Bears gained an advantage early, leading by as many as six points on two occasions, the latest coming midway through the half on a Louison layup, putting the Bears up 20-14.  But a quick 15-4 Cougar run over a three minute span quickly erased the Bears lead.  The Bears prevented the Cougars from pulling away and both teams went into the lockers deadlocked at 37-37.

A Rogowski layup to open the second stanza gave the Bears the lead for a brief moment, but Medgar rushed out to a double-digit advantage with an 18-4 run capped by a Douglas three-pointer.  Trailing by 12 with 9:18 remaining, the Bears rolled off eight points unanswered in a span of three minutes to trail 62-58.  But the Bears would not come any closer as the Cougars would extend their lead back to double digits with three minutes left and then outscored the Bears 10-2 over the final minutes to pull away.

Medgar closed the game with 54 percent (15-of-28) second-half shooting and 43 percent shooting (27-of-63) for the game including 41 percent (7-of-17) from behind the arc.  The Bears shot a similar 42 percent (27-of-64) but struggled from three-point land connecting on only 12 percent (3-of-26) of their attempts.

The Cougars maintained a 47-33 rebounding advantage and converted 17 on the offensive end into 21 second chance points.  Nearly half the Bears' offensive production came from inside as they dominated paint scoring, 32-16.

St. Joseph's will look to rebound and snap their longest skid of the season, resuming their Hudson Valley Men's Athletic Conference schedule with the first of three straight league games on Tuesday, February 1st against Sarah Lawrence College.  Tip off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Technical High School.