Late Miscues Lead to Loss at La Salle

Wednesday, February 15

Philadelphia, PA

7:00 PM

University of Richmond

13-14,6-8Atlantic 10

La Salle

13-13,7-6Atlantic 10

Richmond

La Salle

02/15/2023 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The Richmond Spiders took care of the ball better than in any other game of the season Wednesday night at La Salle, committing a season-low five turnovers. The issue was the timing of the final two.

A fumbled exchange near midcourt led directly to a La Salle layup in a one-point game with less than three minutes remaining. A key defensive rebound was stripped away moments after the Explorers missed the front end of a 1-on-1 in the final minute. The two late turnovers, combined with one made shot in their final six attempts from the field, were enough to turn a four-point lead with under five minutes to play into a 68-62 road loss for the Spiders.

"If you're going to close out a game, you need every possession. It's so important. You can't have turnovers that turn right into points," said Richmond Head Coach Chris Mooney. "We got that four-point lead with I think maybe 4:50 left, and I just thought we could play until the next media and give ourselves a good chance and unfortunately that wasn't the case."

Richmond's late struggles spoiled a tremendous game from center Neal Quinn, who scored 16 points and handed out eight assists while recording six rebounds and a pair of blocks. Quinn is the first Atlantic 10 player to reach those totals in a game this season, and his performance came after missing the majority of Saturday's Loyola Chicago game after spraining his ankle in the first half.

"I did a lot of treatment with Andy [McPherson] over the last few days just to get my ankle as good as possible. It felt fine out there," said Quinn. "I looked to be aggressive. I looked to find my teammates. I was just kind of playing basketball out there. I wasn't thinking too much."

Mooney would like to see even more of the Richmond offense run through Quinn, who shot 6-13 from the field.

"The field goal attempts should be up to 18 to 21 to be honest with you," said Mooney. "I feel like he tired a little bit. You've got to be out there and dig in and keep playing, because that was the best thing that we had going. He probably could have had three or four more assists, because he threw the ball out nicely and we had some open shots."

The Spiders shot just 4-22 from three-point range, making one of their last 13 three-point attempts.

"You have to be able to knock down a shot," said Mooney. "Especially if they're going to pay a lot of attention to the lane, to the post players, you have to be able to knock down a shot and we just weren't able to do that."

Richmond's five turnovers were its fewest in a game since the 2022 Atlantic 10 Semifinals, when the Spiders committed just five turnovers in a win vs Dayton.

"To have five turnovers — they did press, they picked us up man-to-man just about every possession, that's a great sign, a good indicator," said Mooney. "The reason you keep the ball and you keep possession is to make a couple more shots than we did. We just didn't quite make enough."

Richmond led 29-24 at halftime but fell behind early in the second half, as La Salle used a 10-4 run out of the locker room to take a 34-33 lead with 16:12 remaining. After the Explorers lead grew to as many as five, Richmond used a 6-0 spurt to take a 56-52 edge with 4:54 to play before cold shooting and a pair of costly turnovers cost the Spiders their lead.

Tyler Burton also scored 16 for Richmond and added a team-high 10 rebounds for his 22^nd career double-double.

The loss dropped Richmond to 13-14 this season and 6-8 in the Atlantic 10. The Spiders are off this weekend before returning to the Robins Center on Tuesday for a matchup with Saint Louis. The game will tip at 7 PM and be shown on MASN and ESPN Plus.