Spiders, Francis Roll Hawks in Conference Opener

Thursday, January 2

Robins Center

7:00 PM

University of Richmond

Saint Joseph's

01/02/2020 | Men's Basketball

Box Score Mooney, Grace, Wojcik Postgame

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. -- An offensive eruption at the end of each half and Blake Francis's game-high 23 points gave the Richmond Spiders the necessary firepower to start the new decade off with an 84-52 victory over Saint Joseph's in their first Atlantic 10 game of the season Thursday night at the Robins Center.

"I thought we had three really big spurts on offense," said head coach Chris Mooney. "Otherwise we were overall decent on offense, but during those spurts we were tremendous." The Spiders ran off 12 straight points twice in the first half and put together an 18-2 stretch in the second half en route to their biggest conference win since beating Fordham 102-58 on January 25, 2012.

Richmond improved to 11-3 overall, notching its best record through 14 games since the 2010-11 season, which also saw an 11-3 start. In addition, the Spiders remain perfect on their home floor, improving to 8-0 this season. The last time the Spiders started a season with at least eight straight wins at the Robins Center was 2009 (nine).

The win brought a special moment for guard Blake Francis, who surpassed the 1,000-point plateau in his college career by knocking down a free throw at 14:04 in the second half. Francis joined Grant Golden and Jacob Gilyard as current Spiders with 1,000 collegiate points. Richmond is one of six D-I schools with three active 1,000-point scorers.

An early 7-0 run put Richmond up 11-2 after the opening four minutes. However, Saint Joseph's aggressive drives and a trio of three-pointers gave the Hawks their first lead of the game at 19-18 with with 8:30 remaining in the first half as Richmond went cold from the field, missing six of seven field goals. Richmond's bench answered, as Jake Wojcik made a pair of threes to spark a 12-0 run that put the Spiders back in front, 30-19.

Less than a minute after their 12-0 run ended, the Spiders started another 12-0 stretch as Matt Grace found Gilyard for a layup. Francis scored the final seven points of the half as Richmond took a 44-23 lead into the locker room.

The two teams traded buckets for much of the second half as the Hawks cut the Spiders lead to as few as 13. With Richmond leading 62-45 and six minutes to play, a Nick Sherod layup followed by a three-point play from Wojcik started an 18-2 Spiders run over four minutes to salt away the game.

Blake Francis finished with a game-high 23 points, 15 more than Hawks guard Ryan Daly, who entered the game leading the conference in scoring at over 20 points per game. The Spiders also forced Daly into six turnovers, twice his season average. "For us to make it difficult for him was critical to our overall defensive effort," said Mooney. "I thought that the combination of Blake [Francis] and Andre [Gustavson] really guarded him very, very well."

Richmond also performed at the charity stripe, making all 14 of its free throw attempts to break its Robins Center record for free throws without a miss. Prior to Thursday, the Spiders record for most free throws without a miss at the Robins Center, where they've played since 1972, was 12 against Saint Joseph's in 2012.

Wojcik followed up on an exceptional performance against Alabama last Sunday (17 points) to chip in 14 points on 3-4 shooting from beyond of the arc. Gilyard had 13 points and a pair of steals, giving him 225 for his career and breaking a tie with Tony Dobbins for the second most in school history.

Richmond will be on the road this weekend for a Sunday matchup at Rhode Island. Tip time is set for 12 pm and the game will be shown on ESPN+.