Men's Basketball Drubs St. Thomas Aquinas, 74-50
Box Score
BROOKVILLE, N.Y. (Feb. 20, 2013) - The LIU Post men's basketball team won its fourth East Coast Conference matchup in its past five tries with a 74-50 pounding of St. Thomas Aquinas College.
The Pioneers moved to 17-7 overall and 12-4 in ECC play, while the Spartans dropped to 5-20 overall and 5-11 in ECC contests.
Junior
Vaughn Allen (Mount Vernon, N.Y.) and senior Nick Lopez traded baskets for the first four minutes of a wild first half that saw eight lead changes. A three-point play by sophomore Alushula Odongo built an 18-13 lead for the Spartans at the 9:29 mark, but the Pioneers began to slowly chip away at the deficit. Allen hit a jumper to kick off an 11-4 run that put LIU Post ahead 35-29 at halftime. He lead all scorers with 16 points and seven rebounds going into the locker room following the first half.
Saint Thomas Aquinas would never recover the lead in the second half. Though Lopez tied the score at 35 with a jumper at 18:32, senior
Tobin Carberry (Hamden, Conn.) caught fire from behind the arc. Carberry rattled off three consecutive three point and 13 consecutive points overall to open up a 17-point lead for the home squad. LIU Post maintained a double digit lead the rest of the way as an alley oop from freshman
Dillon Burns (Staten Island, N.Y.) to freshman
Emile Blackman (Dix Hills, N.Y.) and three from Blackman brought the crowd to its feet with 6:46 remaining. The Pioneers cruised the rest of the game by dominating down low and scoring 18 points in the paint to the Spartans' 10 in the second half.
The Pioneers' bench delivered a clutch performance with 23 points to Spartans eight. Carberry, one of three double digit scorers for LIU Post, had a game-high 23 points. Allen had a double double finish of 18 points and 10 rebounds while Burns dished out a career-high 14 assists. Freshman T.J. Jones led the Spartans with 17 points and seven rebounds, but St. Thomas Aquinas shot just 33.3 percent (19-57)from the field. The Pioneers made 41.8 percent (28-67) of their shots.
The Pioneers will host New York Institute of Technology in the final regular season home game at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in Pratt Recreation Center.