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Moon Township, Pa. – Corey Maynard's three-pointer as time expired was off the mark and the
Robert Morris University men's basketball team held on for its seventh straight win Thursday night with a 79-76 victory over Bryant at the Charles L. Sewall Center.
RMU improved to 12-10 overall and a perfect 7-0 in the Northeast Conference thanks to the win, while the Bulldogs had their four-game winning streak snapped and dipped to 13-9 overall and 5-2 in conference play.
In posting a wire-to-wire win, the Colonials grabbed their biggest advantage of the contest, 56-42, when junior guard
Charles Oliver (Scotch Plains, N.J. / Lakeland Community College) converted a three-point play with 12:52 to play.
Robert Morris kept its deficit in double digits the majority of the second half, owning a 65-52 advantage with 8:13 to go after a layup from junior forward
Aaron Tate (New Bern, N.C. / Lakeland Community College), but Bryant charged back with a 16-6 surge to close within 71-68 with 2:35 remaining after a Corey Maynard three-pointer. Maynard was the main offensive force during the run, scoring 11 points.
Senior guard
Anthony Myers-Pate (Washington, D.C. / Charis Prep) answered Maynard's three-pointer with one of his own at the 2:15 mark of the second half to push RMU's lead to 74-68, but Alex Francis would again make it a one-possession contest, 74-71, after a three-point play thanks to a layup and foul by sophomore center
Stephan Hawkins (Gary, Ind. / Bowman Academy).
Less than a minute remained when senior guard
Karvel Anderson (Elkhart, Ind. / Glen Oaks Community College) was sent to the free-throw line, and he hit the front end of a pair of attempts to give the Colonials a 75-71 cushion. Maynard responded for the Bulldogs, hitting a layup and converting a three-point play after another foul by Hawkins to make it a one-point game, 75-74.
Myers-Pate was then sent to the stripe with 31 seconds to go, and he hit both of his attempts to push the Robert Morris advantage to 77-74. Francis would convert a layup on Bryant's next possession to again make it a one-point game before Anderson helped seal the win with a pair of free throws with 12.1 seconds to play.
Robert Morris jumped out of the gates to leads of 11-2, 18-8 and 28-16 in the first half behind Myers-Pate and Anderson, who combined to score 29 points in the first half on 12-of-16 shooting from the floor, including 5-for-7 from deep.
Myers-Pate finished with a career-high 21 points for RMU and also recorded five rebounds, while the Colonials were led by Anderson, who scored 24 points.
Francis took home game-high honors in scoring for Bryant with 30 points on 12-of-19 shooting from the field and a 6-for-10 performance at the free-throw line and also recorded a double-double thanks to 10 boards. Also scoring in double figures for the Bulldogs was Maynard with 19 points, while Dyami Starks contributed 10 points.
Robert Morris closes out a four-game homestand in search of its eighth straight victory Saturday, Feb. 1, when it welcomes Central Connecticut State to the Sewall Center for a 4:00 p.m. tip.
