Box Score

NIAGARA UNIV., N.Y. – The Niagara men’s basketball team had one of its best offensive performances of the season in a 85-73 win over the Saint Peter’s Peacocks on Friday night.

The Purple Eagles (7-11, 2-4 MAAC) had their second highest field goal percentage (48.2 percent) of the season and their highest free throw percentage (80 percent) en route to scoring their most points in a conference game since Feb. 2010.

“It’s hard to score against that team, that is their thing they play good defense,” head coach Joe Mihalich said. “And if you told me before the game we would have that many points I would have been happy, but I would have been surprised, too.”

The offense was sharp from the tip-off. Niagara scored the game’s first 10 points as part of a 13-3 start. Antoine Mason led the charge early, accounting for half of Niagara’s 26 points through the opening 12 minutes, and finished the half leading all scorers with 15 points. Niagara drained eight of its 11 3-pointers in the first half from five different players as the Purple Eagles took their largest halftime lead of the season, 45-31.

SPC  (3-12, 2-4 MAAC) trimmed the lead to under single digits, 57-48, with 12:44 before a dunk by Scooter Gillette sparked a 13-4 run over the next four minutes. A 3-pointer by Marvin Jordan at 4:09 gave NU its largest lead of the game, 81-60.

The trio of Juan'ya Green, Mason and Jordan were the engine was once again for the Purple Eagles. Green led Niagara in scoring for the 11th time this season with 20 points for his seventh 20-point game. Green set a new career-best by going 11-for-11 at the free-throw to become the first player to be perfect from the line with a minimum of 10 free throw attempts since Tyrone Lewis on Feb. 2009. Mason had 19 points, five rebounds and four assists, while Jordan went 4-for-8 from behind the arc and finished with 18 points.

Niagara continues its weekend homestand versus Marist on Sunday at 2 p.m. For ticket information, contact the Niagara Athletic Ticket Office at 716-286-TIXX.