BOX SCORE
DURHARM, NH - The University of Hartford men's basketball team couldn't overcome a slow second-half start and dropped a 55-47 final at the University of New Hampshire on Wednesday night at Lundholm Gymnasium.
Hartford (5-10 overall, 1-1 AE) fell behind by 12 in the second half but fought back to cut the margin to two with just over five minutes to play. New Hampshire (5-7 overall, 1-0 AE) responded with 10 of the next 13 points to pump its lead back to nine.
Tyrece Gibbs scored a game-high 21 points and added eight rebounds to lead the Wildcats. Senior Michael Turner finished with 16 points and seven rebounds to lead the Hawks. The two were named America East Players of the Game.
New Hampshire finished with a 44-29 advantage on the glass, led by a career-high 17 rebounds from Dane DiLiegro. The Wildcats also pulled down 18 offensive rebounds in the game.
Neither team was particularly sharp in the first half. New Hampshire jumped out to an early lead behind the solid play of Gibbs, who netted 10 points in the first half. His three-pointer with 14:48 to play gave the Wildcats their biggest lead of the stanza at 12-4.
Hartford got back into the game with solid defense. Over the next nine minutes, the Hawks held the Wildcats to only one field goal and went on a 13-3 run. Freshman Genesis Maciel tied the game with a bucket and then gave Hartford a 17-15 lead with 5:44 remaining to cap the run.
New Hampshire took back the lead on the following possession, with Gibbs stepping up to hit another trey. The Wildcats held on for the rest of the half and took a 23-19 advantage into the locker room. The 19 points were the fewest scored by the Hawks in a half this season.
A slow start to the second half put the Hawks in a hole. New Hampshire built the lead to 31-19 as Hartford went scoreless for the first six minutes of the stanza. The Hawks didn't get their first field goal until the 12-minute mark when senior Jaret von Rosenberg made a layup of an inbounds play. All told, the Hawks started the half 1-of-10 from the field with three turnovers.
Trailing 38-25 with 9:14 to go, Hartford fought back behind a 13-2 run over the next four minutes. A three-pointer from sophomore Andres Torres cut the deficit to single digits, and after a pair of free throws by UNH's Alvin Abreu made it 40-31, the Hawks scored seven straight points to pull within two. Von Rosenberg, who scored eight points in the run, capped things with an old-fashioned three-point play to make it 40-38 with 5:54 to go.
New Hampshire broke out of its slump with a three from the corner by Gibbs, but Turner answered right back to keep it a two-point game. Then, following a UNH timeout, a blown defensive assignment gave Gibbs a wide-open look from downtown. He buried the shot from the wing, sparking a 7-0 run for the Wildcats that brought their lead back to nine with 2:57 to go.
Hartford never got closer than six the rest of the way. The Hawks shot 33 percent for the contest and made 5-of-19 attempts from beyond the arc. Von Rosenberg also finished in double figures with 15 points.
Hartford will take a break from conference play when it visits Yale University on Saturday, January 10. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m.
