PHOTO GALLERY

WORCESTER, Mass. – It was a tale of two halves for the New Haven men's basketball team as they dropped a 69-59 decision to the Assumption Greyhounds on the road on Tuesday evening. With the decision, New Haven falls to 2-3 on the season and 1-2 in the Northeast-10 Conference.

Leading the Chargers was sophomore guard Jah'likai King who finished with a game-high 15 points, connecting on 6-of-10 from the field, including a three pointer. King was one of three Chargers in double figures for the game, joined by Seth Sharif-Brown (Hackensack, N.J./Hackensack) and Ethan Simmon (Edison, N.J./St. Joseph Metuchen) who finished with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

As a team, New Haven finished the game shooting 37.7 percent from the field, connecting on 23-of-61 field goal attempts, with four of the field goals from outside the three point arc where the Blue and Gold were 4-of-27 overall. New Haven also finished 9-of 16 from the free throw line.

The Greyhounds also took the victory in the battle of the boards with a 46-33 margin with King also leading the team with eight rebounds. Sharif-Brown and Tarese Morse (Springfield, Mass./Springfield) followed with six rebounds apiece, while Sharif-Brown also led the Chargers with five assists.

FIRST HALF NOTES

·        The Chargers led wire-to-wire in the opening half after opening up the game scoring the first seven points of the night and opening up a 9-1 lead before the Greyhounds first bucket came over five minutes into the action.

·        Among those first nine points for New Haven, Javel Cherry (Poughkeepsie, N.Y./Poughkeepsie) scored all but two with a three pointer, turnaround jumper and a pair of free throws.

·        Despite holding the Chargers scoreless for a 10 minute stretch following Cherry's final bucket in that stretch, New Haven never relinquished that lead and eventually put it back at five with a drive to the hoop from Sharif-Brown.

·        Another two minute scoreless stretch for the Chargers allowed the Greyhounds to knot the score at 11 before King broke that stalemate with a three pointer on a step back jumper with 9:05 remaining. That three pointer began a 7-0 stretch for New Haven.

·        The Greyhound managed to pull the lead back to a single point at 20-19 before the Blue and Gold closed out the half scoring 11 of the final 16 points of the half.

·        That early eight point lead was the largest of the half for New Haven as they managed to match that number once more, that coming at the halftime buzzer as Sharif-Brown scored the final bucket of the period for a 31-23 lead at the intermission.

·        Sharif-Brown led the Chargers with eight points in the opening half, while King and Cherry each added seven.

SECOND HALF NOTES

·        New Haven came out of the locker room to score the first points of the half on a layup from Ugo Nwachukwu (Imo State, Nigeria/Springfield Commonwealth Academy) which opened up the Chargers largest lead of the game at 33-23.

·        Following that basket, New Haven came up empty from the field over the next five minutes as the Greyhounds not only erased that double digit deficit but flipped the script in their favor and opened up a 38-35 lead before King was able to end the drought on a layup with 14:19 remaining.  

·        The King hoop was part of three unanswered for the Chargers which once again flipped the lead in the visiting team's favor before a three pointer from the Greyhounds tied the score at 41.

·        The teams would trade leads five times over the next two minutes before took the lead for good just inside the 10 minute mark as they began an 11-2 lead that resulted in a 58-50 lead for the home team.

·        Tristian Jeffries (Hillside, N.J./Saint Thomas Aquinas) ended that rally with a three pointer at the five minute mark, however that was the only bucket for the next three minutes as Assumption was able to open up an 11 point lead with less than two minutes remaining.

·        New Haven would muster two more buckets in the final two minutes, only to have those answered by the Greyhounds as they closed out the game with the double digit lead thanks to going 3-of-4 at the line in the final minute.

UP NEXT

New Haven will step away from Northeast-10 Conference action for a single non-conference game over the weekend as they travel to Long Island to meet the Molloy Lions on Saturday, November 30. Tipoff from Quealy Gymnasium is slated for 12:00 p.m.