King's Bounced From Men Basketball's Block Party in Home Opener

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – The St. joseph's College (Brooklyn) men's basketball team set  a new school record with nine rejections on their way to a dominating 90-39 victory over The King's College at Brooklyn Technical High School in their Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (HVIAC) and home openers Tuesday night.

The Bears (3-4, 1-0 HVIAC) snap a two-game losing streak while the Lions (1-6, 0-3) remain searching for that elusive first win in HVIAC play.

The nine blocks break the mark of eight set just last Saturday against Southern Virginia.

St. Joseph's led from start to finish keyed by their defense and 72.4 percent first half shooting as they built a 58-26 at the break.  The Bears defense locked down the Lions offense in the second half holding them to 13 points in the period on 16.0 percent shooting on their way to building their largest lead of the night at 86-30 with 5:42 left to play.

Pacing four Bears in double figures was junior Vernon Maddox (Staten Island, N.Y./St. Peter's) who poured in a game-high 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting in only 14 minutes of action to go along with three assists.  Junior David Louison (Brooklyn, N.Y./St. Edmund Prep) contributed 11 points and a team-high seven boards while sophomore Matt O'Neill (Brooklyn, N.Y./St. Edmund Prep) dropped in 11 points adding four helpers to his stat line.  Freshman Francisco Escobedo (El Paso, Texas/Santa Teresa) came off the bench to chip in a career-high 11 points along with three caroms and four assists.

King's was led by Joshua Rivera who had a team-high 12 points.

TURNING POINT

Following a Rivera jumper that got the Lions to within three, 10-7, at the 16:22 mark St. Joseph's  responded with 27 unanswered capped off by Escobedo trey to build a 37-7 lead and cruised the rest of the way home.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• Other contributors: Michael Megafu (9 pts, 2 stl, 2 blk) Kalil Sherrod (8 pts, 2 reb) Richard DiPuma (7 pts, 6 reb, 3 blk)
• The Bears came back down to earth in the second half shooting 33.3 percent (11-of-33) to finish the game at 51.6 percent (32-of-62).
• The Lions finished shooting at a 27.8 percent (15-of-54) clip after shooting 37.9 percent (11-of-29) in the first half
• St. Joseph's held a large discrepancy at the line going 20-of-32 from the charity stripe compared to 2-of-4 for King's.
• The Bears converted 26 Lion turnovers into 38 points.

THE BEAR FACTS

• St. Joseph's shoots over 50 percent for the first time since last year's meeting between the two squads when they hit 51.1 percent of their shots.
• The Bears have now won back-to-back home openers for the first time since the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons.

NEXT UP FOR THE BEARS

St. Joseph's returns to the floor on Friday, December 6th travelling to Hunter College for an 8 p.m. matchup.