BLACK AND GOLD SUFFER SETBACK AT ROBERT MORRIS THURSDAY NIGHT

MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. – Reigning Northeast Conference champion Robert Morris proved to be too much to handle Thursday night, as the Bryant University men's basketball team dropped below .500 in league play after suffering a 91-38 setback to the Colonials in Moon Township, Pa.

Fifth-year senior Cecil Gresham (Bloomfield, Conn.) led Bryant (7-16, 5-6 NEC) with 13 points on 4-for-10 shooting on the night while adding two offensive rebounds while sophomore Vlad Kondratyev (Nikolayev, Ukraine) tied the game high with seven boards. Gresham was the only Bulldog to register double-digit points in an outing that saw the Black and Gold record their lowest shooting percentage of the season.

The teams traded points in the game's earlygoings after an opening bucket by the home side, as Bryant would keep the Colonials (10-12, 6-5) in check for the first six-plus minutes to keep the scoreboard close, 10-9, in favor of the home team through the 13:49 mark, seven of those points coming off Gresham drives.

The Black and Gold would not be able to hold off Robert Morris for long, though, as the Colonials went on a 22-5 run spanning more than seven minutes to take a 32-12 advantage. The Colonials were able to continue spreading their lead in the frame's final three minutes, denying the Bulldogs a basket while running out the half on a 7-0 stretch.

Robert Morris's dominant first-half performance was due in large part to the play of center Lijah Thompson and guard Velton Jones, who combined to go 9-for-13 from the floor in the opening 20 minutes and accounted for 23 points and four rebounds. On the visiting side, Gresham paced the Bulldogs, shooting 4-for-7 from the field and going 3-for-4 from the charity stripe. But as a team, the Bulldogs struggled from the free throw line, converting just 41.7 percent of their 12 attempts while turning the ball over four more times than their hosts.

Defensively, the Bulldogs allowed Robert Morris to shoot 59.3 percent from the field in the first frame, and the Colonials were able to convert four of their nine 3-point attempts in the first 20 minutes.

Early in the second session, Robert Morris's Russell Johnson bumped his team's lead up to 33 with back-to-back trifectas before Raphael Jordan (Bel Air, Md.) answered with a pair of free throws, but the lead stuck at 55-22 as the clock ticked under the 15-minute mark. Freshman Jordan Harris (Lincoln University, Pa.) quickly added four points to narrow the margin, but six triples from Colonials Karon Abraham and Coron Williams over the next four minutes stretched the lead to 75-30.

The home team would go on to finish the night shooting 66.7 percent from 3-point land -- a season-high number allowed by the Bryant defense -- after going 10-for-12 (83.3 percent) in the second frame from beyond the arc. On offense, Bryant managed to hit just 22.7 percent from the floor.

The Black and Gold look to put the loss behind them as they travel to Loretto, Pa. to wrap up the western Pennsylvania portion of their current three-game roadtrip for a 3 p.m. Saturday matchup against Saint Francis (PA).