KUTZTOWN, Pa. — The ESU men's basketball team jumped into a tie for second place in the PSAC East with a 87-73 win over Kutztown Tuesday night. The Warriors improved to 14-5 overall and 8-4 in conference.
NOTABLES
- Adrian Brito was the Warriors' leading scorer again for the sixth time this season, finishing with 16 points. In addition to shooting a positive 54.5% from the field, the freshman did a little bit of everything for ESU, adding four rebounds, an assist, a block, and a steal.
- Terrell Pitts came off the bench and scored a season-high 14 points in 25 minutes. The backup wing, who's usually making his impact on the defensive end of the floor, was a scoring threat with and without the ball, making a handful of cuts on his way to the hoop and finishing his own drives to go 5-8 from the field.
- Ethan Maynard was ESU's best three-point shooter tonight, going 4-7 from beyond the arc for 12 points. Maynard also contributed four rebounds, two steals, and a block to round out his performance.
- Fresh off his first career double-double, Keni Williams followed his last game with another double-digit scoring outing while being the team's top distributor. Williams scored 12 points on 66.7% shooting from the field while dishing out five assists.
- Nasir Griffin was ESU's most-frequent free-throw shooter, helping the Warriors shoot 75.7% while he went 7-8 from the charity stripe. Griffin finished with 11 points and also secured seven rebounds.
- The Warriors' active defense helped smother the Kutztown offense for stretches during the game, as Jalen Pichardo, Carson Howard, and Maynard all finished with two steals and a block each.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- The Warriors jumped out to a quick 7-2 lead in the opening 3:26, but as Kutztown began to settle in offensively, ESU's scoring went through a bit of a dry spell. The Golden Bears went on a 15-3 run to take the lead and hold ESU to just 10 points in the opening 10 minutes of the game.
- Pitts was able to snap the funk for ESU, converting a layup off a Williams' assist to make it a five-point game. Starting with that basket, ESU outscored Kutztown 20-11 over the next seven minutes to retake the lead, capped off by a Brito three-pointer that forced a Kutztown timeout.
- The Golden Bears couldn't generate any offense coming out of the 30-second break and were held scoreless for the final two minutes of the half. ESU added on a floater and a free throw to go into halftime leading 33-28.
- Coming out of halftime, Griffin made a pair of free throws, and Maynard hit a three-pointer to give ESU its first double-digit lead of the game, 38-28, with 18:06 remaining. After the Golden Bears momentarily got the deficit to eight, a Williams three-pointer put the Warriors back up by 11.
- ESU led by double figures for the majority of the remainder of the game, but Kutztown made a late push to prevent the Warriors from running away. The Golden Bears used an 11-4 run to make it 72-63 with 4:09 left in the half, but the Warriors put the game away at the free throw line and forced enough empty trips down the court for Kutztown, winning 87-73.
GAME NOTES
- The win marks eight in-a-row for ESU when playing at Kutztown, with ESU going undefeated on the road against the Golden Bears since 2018.
- Two areas the Warriors excelled in tonight were ones they have a reputation for, bench scoring, and one where they've begun to show improvement in, free throw shooting. ESU scored 53 bench points, nearly seven more points than their season average, and recorded a free-throw percentage above 70.0%, the fifth time in the last eight games.
- As the only PSAC East matchup taking place tonight, ESU moved into a tie with Millersville for second place in the division and has equal wins but one more loss than West Chester.
UP NEXT
ESU has potentially its biggest two-game stretch of the entire season coming up this week, taking on West Chester on Thursday and Millersville on Saturday, both at Koehler Fieldhouse. The Warriors and Golden Rams face off on Thursday night for ESU's White Out Game, beginning at 7:30 p.m.
