JERSEY CITY, New Jersey – The Marist men's basketball team lost a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game at Saint Peter's on Sunday, 76-67.
Red-shirt junior guard Khallid Hart led the Red Foxes with 25 points, four steals and three assists. Hart shot 12-for-13 from the free-throw line. Freshman guard Brian Parker contributed 17 points, eight rebounds and three assists. Freshman forward Isaiah Lamb had 10 points and five rebounds.
Trevis Wyche paced Saint Peter's with 20 points and nine assists. Antwon Portley added 15 points, and Quadir Welton finished with 14 points and a team-high eight rebounds.
“Again, I think it's progress, but I want to win, and kids want to win,” head coach Mike Maker said. “We didn't guard well enough to win, especially on the road.”
Neither team led by more than three in the first 10 minutes, but a 9-0 run gave the Peacocks a 20-10 lead with 8:03 left in the first half. A basket by Portley at the 2:18 mark gave Saint Peter's its largest lead at 31-17, but Marist scored the final six points of the first half to cut its deficit to eight after the first 20 minutes.
Marist forced turnovers on three of Saint Peter's first four possessions of the second half, and scored the half's first five points to tie the game at 31. The Peacocks answered with an 8-2 run, but the Red Foxes battled back and took a 48-46 lead on a basket by Lamb with 8:56 remaining. Saint Peter's immediately answered with an 11-0 run and took the lead for good. The Red Foxes never got closer than eight points back in the final four minutes, and the Peacocks went 14-for-18 from the free-throw line in the final three minutes to secure the victory.
“We started fouling early,” Maker said. “Give them credit for making them.”
For the game, Marist shot 20-for-57 (.351) from the field, while Saint Peter's was 22-for-45 (.489). The Peacocks held a 37-32 edge in rebounds. Marist committed 13 turnovers, while Saint Peter's had 15.
Marist fell to 4-12 overall and 1-6 in MAAC play. Saint Peter's is 7-8 overall and 5-1 in the MAAC.
Marist returns to action on Friday, when the Red Foxes host Fairfield at McCann Arena. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m., and the game will air on ESPN3 as part of the conference's television package. Tickets are on sale at GoRedFoxes.com.
Notes: Hart now has 1,102 career points, which ranks 20th in program history. He is 28 points behind Bruce Johnson for 19th place. … Marist hit seven three-pointers, its lowest total in the last eight games. The Red Foxes attempted 21 threes. … There were a total of two free throws attempted by both teams combined in the first half, and 60 in the second half.
