Box Score

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, N.Y. – Senior John Brandenburg earned himself a season-high 12 points as the Colgate men's basketball team dropped a 73-61 decision to St. Francis (N.Y.) Saturday afternoon.

“It was a tough game,” head coach Matt Langel said. “As you look at the box score, anytime you shoot a better field goal percentage than the opposition, you hope you find a way to win the game. Unfortunately there are still two categories that continue to plague us, turnovers and offensive rebounds. Those two things gave them many more scoring opportunities than we had so that ends up being the difference in the game.”

Colgate (3-9) saw Brandenburg hit 4-of-5 from the floor and knock down all four of his shots from the charity stripe. Murphy Burnatowski added to the Colgate scoring with 19 points. Mitch Rolls was 3-of-5 from behind the arc giving him nine points in the game. Brandenburg and Pat Moore led the team in rebounds with eight a piece.

“I thought John (Brandenburg) did a great job.” Langel added. “His offensive production was good, he finished some plays around the basket, he made a jump shot, and a couple foul shots.

“He's been working hard and putting extra time in with the assistant coaches, the athletic trainer and the strength and conditioning coaches to work on his conditioning so he's able to play more minutes. So it's not a huge surprise that he scored a season-high today. We obviously need him to continue to do that as the season moves on.”

The Raiders ended the game with a better shooting percentage than St. Francis however the Terriers would outshoot Colgate in the second half, 43 to 28 to give them the victory.

St. Francis N.Y. (3-7) had two players hit the 20-point mark in Jalen Cannon (24 points) and Travis Nichols (20 points). With his 20 points, Nichols earned himself a double-double as he pulled down a game-high 12 boards. Cannon was 7-of-9 in the first half, leading all scorers while Nichols added 16 of his 20 points in the second half. 

After four lead changes St. Francis aided by a 7-2 run midway through the second half eventually took and held the lead for the remainder of the game. During the run, Nichols hit five shots in a row for St. Francis, including three 3-pointers.

Throughout a back and forth first half, Colgate shot 45% from the floor giving them the slight edge on the scoreboard. Ben Mockford hit a 3-pointer in the beginning five minutes to pull within two after the Raiders held the lead for the early part of the game. The Raiders answered on the other end of the floor with a 3-pointer of their own from senior captain, Rolls.

After a Colgate turnover, the Terriers were able to tie the game at 17 a piece with under ten minutes to play in the half. St. Francis would take over the lead, but Rolls would yet again answer for Colgate hitting one from behind the arc to make the score 25-24 still in favor of the Terriers. Two minutes later the Raiders saw Brandon James hit one from downtown to retake the lead at 27-25. Colgate would head into the locker room with the 33-30 advantage.

The second half showed much of what it did in the first half with each team exchanging buckets. The Terriers extended their lead to as much as 14 points during their 7-2 run midway through the half. Rolls ended St. Francis's scoring by draining a 3-pointer to pull within 11 with less than four minutes to play.

Colgate tried to recover from the deficit, but couldn't find a run of their own and the gap proved to be to much as they eventually fell to the Terriers.

Following the holiday break the Raiders welcome Binghamton and the University of New Hampshire before traveling to Columbia and Dartmouth to close out the rest of their non-conference schedule. Colgate's game against Binghamton is set for Friday Dec. 28th at 7 p.m. The last time these two basketball programs faced each other was last year's season opener with the Raiders taking home the 78-74 win.