Shooting Woes Doom Spiders In Loss To Oral Roberts

Saturday, December 15

Robins Center

4:00 PM

University of Richmond

Oral Roberts

Richmond

12/15/2018 | Men's Basketball

Box Score Coach Mooney and Players Postgame

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. – The Richmond men's basketball team could not overcome a poor shooting performance in a 59-52 loss to Oral Roberts Saturday at the Robins Center.

The Spiders made 29.9 percent of their field goal attempts, their lowest shooting percentage in a game since a loss to Rhode Island on March 1, 2014, and hit on only four of their season-high 30 three-point shots.

The Golden Eagles raced out to an early lead, starting the game shooting over 60 percent from the field and holding the Spiders under 10 points for nearly nine minutes. Oral Roberts led by eight at the break, 31-23, after leading by as many as 11 during the first half.

The Spiders switched to a full-court defense and narrowed the gap to one with a 7-0 run to start the second half. Richmond took its first lead of the game when Noah Yates hit a three-pointer from the corner to put the Spiders up 35-33 with 13:42 remaining in the game.

The two teams traded the lead for the next 10 minutes, with Richmond taking a one-point advantage with under two-and-a-half minutes to play on a three-pointer by Jake Wojcik.

But an 11-3 run by the Golden Eagles over the remainder of the game sealed the loss for Richmond.

Nathan Cayo scored a game-high 17 points and went 7-13 from the field, the only Spider to make half or more of his field goal attempts. He set a career-high with eight rebounds.

Jacob Gilyard also had a career-high eight boards and, for the third straight game, he finished with 14 points. In a full 40 minutes of play, Gilyard logged a career-best seven steals, nearly matching the program record of eight.

The Spiders return to action on Wednesday, December 19, when they host in-state rival Old Dominion at the Robins Center. Game time is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be shown on MASN and ESPN+.