MANCHESTER, N.H. - - The Wilmington University men's basketball team completed its opening weekend tournament hosted by Southern New Hampshire with a 78-60 loss to preseason National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) ranked No. 10 Franklin Pierce on Saturday evening at the SNHU Fieldhouse.
The Wildcats fell to 0-2 in the early going of the 2012-13 season while the Ravens are now 2-0 after the SNHU Tip-Off Tournament.
Senior James Pee scored 14 first half points and led a trio of Wildcats that reached double digits in scoring on the night. Pee shot 6-for-12 from the field, including a 4-for-8 night from three-point territory, adding four rebounds to his stat line.
Junior point guard Herbert Dennis scored 14 points, all in the second half, on 4-of-16 shooting and a 5-for-6 night from the free throw line. Freshman Tajee Almon also collected double figures, scoring 10 points in the second half on 4-for-6 shooting, 2-for-2 form the line and added two rebounds and a block.
The Wildcats shot 23-for-63 from the field, resulting in a 36.5 percent shooting night. They also went 5-for-18 from beyond the three-point arc, but held the Ravens to a 5-for-19 night from down town and a 26.3 shooting percentage. The Raven outshot the Wildcats, however, going 30-for-62 (48.4 percent) from the field for the game.
The Ravens led wire to wire, with only one tie in the ballgame at 2-2. Dusan Kojic put in a layup 55 seconds into the contest to put the Wildcats on the board and tie the game briefly at 2-2 before the Ravens took the lead for good. Twenty seconds later, the Ravens' Eric Jean-Guillaume hit a jumper for the 4-2 lead, a lead Franklin Pierce would never relinquish.
A 15-4 run by Franklin Pierce pushed the lead to 24-9 with 11:12 left in the first half, and the Wildcats were only able to reduce the deficit to below 10 just once for the rest of the game.
The Ravens scored the first seven points of the second half to take a 43-20 lead and stretched the lead to as large as 40 at 64-34 with 7:40 remaining in regulation. From that point, the Wildcats went on to outscore the Ravens, 26-14, to close the gap to 18 as the final buzzer sounded.
Brandon Fox and Shai Henry led the team with six rebounds each, as the Wildcats collected 33 total, 13 of which came on the offensive glass.
Wilmington will open its home slate of games in 2012-13 on Wednesday, November 14 at the WU Athletics Center. The Wildcats will face PSAC foes Kutztown in its first home game in the new facility. Opening tip is slated for 7 p.m.