Robert Morris knocks off BG

11/20/2012
BY JOHN WAGNER
BLADE SPORTS WRITER

PITTSBURGH — Late in Mon­day’s game against Robert Mor­ris, Bowl­ing Green missed four foul shots in the span of a minute. Robert Mor­ris made four of its own in a minute’s time, and opened a lead that held to the fin­ish of what had pre­vi­ously been a close game.

The Co­lo­nials de­feated Bowl­ing Green 71-60 at the Char­les L. Sewall Center in a game that was part of the NIT Sea­son Tip-off.

Robert Mor­ris (2-3) rode out Bowl­ing Green’s hot 3-point shoot­ing in the first half. When the Fal­cons (1-3) cooled off, the Co­lo­nials cap­i­tal­ized, es­pe­cially at the foul line. Robert Mor­ris made 11 of 14 sec­ond-half free throw at­tempts and hit 16 of 20 in the game.

“You al­ways got to go to the line to make free throws to try to ex­tend the game,” said Vel­ton Jones, who led the Co­lo­nials with 16 points and made 9 of 10 foul shots. “That’s what I tried to do, just make free throws and help our team get a win.”

Mike McFad­den and Coron Wil­liams each scored 12.

Jones made four free throws in the span of a minute in the sec­ond half, open­ing a 63-55 lead with 4:17 left in the game. Fal­cons for­wards Craig Sealey and Cameron Black each missed two around that time.

A se­ries of three-point plays had kept Bowl­ing Green’s lead at five, but 3-point­ers from Vel­ton Jones and Karvel Ander­son put Robert Mor­ris on top 56-49 with 7:53 left.

BG made 5 of 9 3-point­ers in the first half. That im­proved in the sec­ond half, and the Fal­cons made only 3 of their 12 3-point at­tempts.

The score re­mained close mid­way through the first half, but Fal­cons guard Je­hvon Clarke hit two 3-point­ers in a two-minute span to give Bowl­ing Green a 21-15 lead with 7:48 left in the half. James Erger hit a 3-pointer af­ter a time­out to ex­tend Bowl­ing Green’s lead to nine.

A 10-2 Robert Mor­ris run cut Bowl­ing Green’s lead to 26-25 with 2:56 re­main­ing in the half. McFad­den and Vel­ton Jones each scored four points dur­ing the run. The score was tied, 29-29, at the end of the first half.

Tho­mas leads OSU

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — De­shaun Tho­mas made a case Sun­day that he's ready to be Ohio State's next star.

Tho­mas tied a ca­reer high with 31 points and led No. 4 Ohio State to a 77-66 win over Wash­ing­ton and the cham­pi­on­ship of the Hall of Fame Tip Off tour­na­ment.

The 6-foot-7 ju­nior, who also had eight re­bounds, had 21 in the first half as the Buck­eyes (3-0) built at 10-point lead and cruised through the sec­ond half.

Aaron Craft added 18 points for the Buck­eyes. C.J. Wil­cox led Wash­ing­ton (2-2) with 18 points and Ab­dul Gaddy had 15.

Ohio State led by dou­ble dig­its much of the way and by as many as 17 in the sec­ond half. Wash­ing­ton made one run, cut­ting the lead to 57-50 on a layup by Gaddy mid­way through the sec­ond half, be­fore the Buck­eyes stretched it back out.

Tho­mas, the Buck­eyes' go-to player af­ter the de­par­ture of Jared Sull­in­ger to the NBA, scored 11 of his team's first 13 points. He showed off his ver­sa­til­ity by hit­ting a 3-pointer, two jump­ers, a layup and a hook shot, and con­nected on his first nine shots.

Tho­mas also cored 31 last sea­son against Loy­ola (Md.).