ALLENTOWN, Pa. --- The Moravian College men's basketball team rallied from a 17-point deficit with nine and a half minutes to play to pull within two points before falling to rival Muhlenberg College, 85-79, in non-conference action Tuesday evening to begin the 2016-17 season.
Senior forward Brandon McGuire led the Greyhounds with his 19th career double-double of 26 points and 14 rebounds to go with three assists and a pair of steals. McGuire was 12-for-16 from the floor and 2-for-3 at the foul line. Sophomore guard Jimmy Murray was the only other Moravian player in double figures with 15 points, 13 of them in the second half to go with three rebounds.
Senior guard Sean Hanna contributed nine points with two rebounds while sophomore forward Jake McGee had eight points. Junior guard Matt Cardonne tossed in six points with a pair of rebounds while sophomore forward Oneil Holder added five points, five rebounds and three assists for the Blue and Grey. Freshman guard Elijah Davis contributed four points while senior guard Isaiah Jennings had five assists and sophomore guard Will Brazukas added four steals, three points and two assists.
Moravian struggled to shoot the ball, going 28-of-73 from the field (38.4 percent) while the Mules made 47.8 percent (22-of-46) of their attempts. The biggest discrepancy in the game came at the foul line where the Greyhounds were 15-of-20 while Muhlenberg connected on 38-of-49 free throws. Moravian did force the Mules into 22 turnovers while only committing 18 turnovers.
"I give credit to Muhlenberg. I thought they played well and controlled the tempo of the game by getting the ball into the post where they had some advantage," stated second-year Head Coach Justin Potts. "We just didn't play well for 40 minutes. I thought we did some good things but we still have to grow up. We still have a lot of young guys. We played hard enough to win but we didn't execute in long enough stretches at either end of the floor. We also didn't get the pace and tempo where we wanted it. The team that usually controls the pace gets the win and Muhlenberg did that tonight."
Muhlenberg scored first before a jumper by McGee tied the score at 2-2 just 88 seconds into the game. The Mules would score the next 11 points for a 13-2 advantage, and the edge reached 14 points. With just over seven minutes left in the first half, McGee and Cardonne hit back-to-back three-pointers, and McGuire added a lay-up before two free throws from McGee had the Greyhounds down just 26-23 with 6:10 until the intermission. The Hounds had the deficit at three points on three other occasions in the first half before heading to the locker room down 41-35.
Just over five minutes into the second half, Murray hit a pair of free throws that put Moravian down just two points, 47-45; however, the Mules scored eight straight points and would eventually push the lead to 68-51 with 9:27 left on the clock. Murray hit two three-pointers around a lay-up from Hanna to get the deficit back under 10, and Moravian slowly climbed back into the game before McGuire's spinning lay-up on the baseline had the Hounds down, 81-79, with 1:02 remaining. The Greyhounds were unable to get any closer.
Moravian is scheduled to return to action on Friday, November 19 in the opening round of the Ollie Gelston Classic at Montclair State University. The Blue and Grey will play the City College of New York at 6:00 p.m. on Friday.
