RIVERDALE, N.Y. – The Niagara Purple Eagles had their bid for a sweep of the Manhattan Jaspers fall short in an 84-75 setback on Saturday night.
Wesley Myers shared game-high honors with 22 points to set career-high scoring marks in consecutive games.
Ramone Snowden scored 16 points, while
Rayvon Harrisadded 13 points and tied for game-high in rebounds with seven.
NU (3-11, 2-4 MAAC) shot 55.6 percent from the field for its second highest percentage of the season; the highest came against Manhattan (7-8, 4-2 MAAC) on Jan. 2. Rebounds (31-31) and points in the paint (28-28) were even, but the game changer was Manhattan's 28-6 advantage in points off turnovers.
"I think they are really good and play extremely hard but we play extremely hard too," head coach
Chris Casey said. "The difference in the game was they scored 28 points off of our turnovers. We need to get off to a better start. Once we settled in we did ok, but that is something we have to get over. We have to handle the ball better, not give up points off turnovers and start the game better."
Another slow start saw the Purple Eagles trailing 20-6 after seven minutes. However, Niagara reeled off 10 straight points beginning with a 3-pointer by Ramone Snowden. From there, the rest of the first half was played in a tight window as the Purple Eagles trimmed the deficit to three points on three separate occasions. NU went into halftime down 41-38 and finished the half shooting 67 percent from the field for its highest percentage in a half since shooting 67 percent in the second half against Northwestern State on Feb. 2, 2013.
The close nature to the game continued into the second half. The Purple Eagles trailed by five points before Manhattan managed to build its lead back to double-digits, 62-52, with eight minutes remaining. NU cut the lead to 70-65 on a Myers layup with 1:27 left, but Manhattan answered with four straight points and made their free throws in the final minute to pull out the win.
NU returns home to play the Penn Quakers on Tuesday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. in its final regular season non-conference game of the season. For ticket information, contact the Niagara Athletic Ticket Office at 716-286-8499.
