Big Red Too Much For Brown 75-66
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Basketball can be an easy game when you’re making your shots. When the shots aren’t falling, not so much.
Friday night in Ithaca, NY, the Brown Bears led Cornell for most of the game thanks to some good shooting and solid defense. Unfortunately, the Bears offense went into hibernation in the game’s final 7 minutes producing 0 points in the final 6:54. That allowed the Big Red to pull off the come from behind win 75-66. It’s Cornell’s 10th straight win over the Bears.
It was an entertaining first half of play which saw both teams hold the lead at various times. Tucker Halpern’s three just before half sent the Bears to the locker room up 41-39.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTHalpern had a super first half scoring 17 of his game-high 18 points in the first 20 minutes of play.
Brown got off to a good start in the second half extending its lead to 10 with 12:40 to play.
But the Big Red slowly chipped away at the Brown lead and trailed by only two 62-60 when Peter Sullivan (12 pts, 6 assists, 4 reb) got the hoop and the harm to put the bears back up by 5, 65-60 with 7:23 to play.
Unfortunately for the Bears, that would be their last field goal of the night.
Halpern hit 1 of 2 free throws moments later to make it 66-62 Brown with 6:54 left. That free throw would turn out to be Brown’s last point of the game.
Brown had some open looks over the next 4 minutes of play but failed to cash in on any of them. The Bears missed lay-up’s, open three and free throws down the stretch sealing their fate.
"It's not like we didn't have our opportunities," said Brown head coach Jesse Agel. "We had some good looks at open shots but missed lay-up's and wide open three's. We also missed from the free throw line and had some defensive breakdowns because we stopped communicating on defense."
Sophomore big man Andrew McCarthy played well for Brown finishing with 14 points and 5 rebounds. Freshman Sean McGonagill had 10 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds.
The loss dropped Brown’s record to (11-16) overall and (4-9) in the Ivy League.
The Bears wrap up their season tonight at Columbia at 7pm.
