Men’s Basketball Suffers 80-50 Setback at MIT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.- The Eastern Nazarene College men's basketball team dropped an 80-50 decision at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Saturday afternoon.

The Lions dip to 1-1 on the season with the result while the Engineers, who received votes in the D3Hoops.com Preseason Poll, improve to 2-0 with the win.

Rookie Trey'von Davis (Moore, S.C.) paced the visitors with 12 points off the bench. Josh Rice (Hanson, Mass.) and Brenndan Rogers (Hanson, Mass.) both finished with eight points on the day. Noah Cheney (Bend, Ore.) posted seven points and four rebounds while TJ Vazquez (Weymouth, Mass.) hauled in a team-high five boards.

Eastern Nazarene established an early 6-2 edge as Jacob Waldroop (Newland, N.C.) splashed a three-pointer with 16:33 remaining in the first half.

The Lions widened the gap to 19-11 with 10:30 left to play in the opening period on a layup by Nathan Vazquez (Weymouth, Mass.).

The visitors stretched their lead to double-digits with 7:42 to go in the first frame as Rogers canned a trey, 26-16.

The home team trimmed the margin to 36-35 just before the halftime intermission on a layup by Bradley Jomard.

Eastern Nazarene shot 40% from the floor and drained 6-of-15 from beyond the arc in the first half. MIT posted a field-goal percentage of 52.4% in the opening stanza despite shooting just 25% from three-point range.

The Engineers seized their first lead of the game just 25 seconds into the second half as Nacho Nwana nailed a three-pointer, 38-36.

MIT strung together a 20-0 run spanning the first eight minutes of the second period to construct a 55-36 advantage.

The hosts outscored the Lions 45-14 in the second frame to cruise to their second victory of the year.

Eastern Nazarene shot 30% from the field and 31.8% from long distance in the contest. MIT finished with a field-goal percentage of 51.9% while connecting on 29.4% of its three-point attempts.

The Engineers were led by Jomard with 16 points and Nwana with 13 points. Hamilton Forsythe, Cameron Korb, and Aidan Einloth all scored in double-figures off the bench for MIT.

Up next, the Lions will host Pine Manor in the first home game of the season November 21.