Strong Second Half Leads Bucknell Past Spiders, 86-78

Tuesday, December 19

Robins Center

7:00 PM

University of Richmond

2-9

Bucknell

5-7

BUCKNELL

RICHMOND

Strong Second Half Leads Bucknell Past Spiders, 86-78

12/19/2017 | Men's Basketball

Box Score COACH MOONEY POSTGAME

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. – For 21 minutes, the University of Richmond men's basketball dominated a strong, veteran NCAA Tournament team.

That strong, veteran team put together a run that ultimately was too much for the Spiders (2-9), who fell to Patriot League power Bucknell (5-7), 86-78, on Tuesday night at the Robins Center.

"Bucknell's a good veteran team and we knew they were going to make a run, we just weren't able to respond after they did just that in the second half," Head Coach Chris Mooney said. "I thought they became a lot more aggressive in the second half and we just weren't good enough in the second half."

Sophomore De'Monte Buckingham poured in a team-high 22 points to lead all five starters in double-figures. Buckingham also grabbed eight rebounds and dished out five assists on the night. The freshman duo of Grant Golden and Jacob Gilyard combined for 29 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, while Nick Sherod (11) and Khwan Fore (10) also reached double-digits in the contest.

"We just have to keep pushing ourselves and know there's a lot of games ahead of us," Buckingham said. "It starts in practice, we have to keep pushing each other every time we step on the court."

The Spiders blistered the nets in the first half, shooting 17-of-28 from the field en route to a 47-36 halftime lead, in large part to 16 points from Buckingham.

Richmond dished out 11 assists on those 17 field goals, including several back door cuts and four three-pointers to take control of the game.

"I thought we played really, really well in that first half. We had great movement offensively and good intensity defensively."

An old-fashioned three point play by Sherod to start the second half gave the Spiders their largest lead of the game at 50-36.

That's when the Bison would respond, putting together a 16-4 run, capped off by a three from Nate Sestina to bring Bucknell within 54-52 with 12:23 remaining.

Buckingham and Golden answered for the Spiders, pushing their lead back to seven, but Bucknell's Zach Thomas was red hot in the second half, scoring 17 of his game-high 27 points in the final 10 minutes of the contest to give the Bison control of the contest en route to the 86-78 victory.

Richmond returns to action on Sunday night when they travel to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts to battle ACC foe Boston College. Game time on Saturday is set for 1 p.m.