Men overwhelmed by Case Western

The NYU men's basketball team came into their Sunday match-up at Case Western Reserve University riding a four-game winning streak, but ran out of steam as they lost to the Spartans 69-51 at Horsburgh Gymnasium in Cleveland.

"We just came out too lackadaisical," said junior guard Derek Becker, who finished with seven points and three steals.

The Violets (14-6, 5-4 UAA), were not productive on the offensive side of the ball. The Spartans outscored them in the paint 40-20, and also had 14 fast-break points to the Violets' four.

On Jan. 31, the Violets scored 78 points in a home victory against Case Western, but on Sunday they only shot 35.3 percent and scored a meager 51 points.

Despite averaging 69 points per contest, the Violets have had several scoring droughts this season. NYU did not score for the first 8:12 of the second half.

"We rely on our shot a lot, and when you do that you're susceptible to scoring droughts," said senior Keith Jensen, who led NYU with 14 points.

The Violets had trouble boxing out their men, getting outrebounded 46-24. The Spartans outscored NYU 12-2 in second-chance opportunities. Apparently, poor defense led to bad offense for the Violets.

"We just weren't getting the ball as much as we would like to, and when we did, we just didn't hit our shots," Becker said.

The Spartans were coming off a big 63-61 win against Brandeis University Friday night and rode that momentum into Sunday's game against NYU. Case Western, who shot 42 percent from the field against NYU, closed out the first half with a 12-5 run, and headed into the locker room up 36-25. They then scored 14 unanswered points to start the second half, giving them a 50-25 lead. Junior Reid Anderson led the Spartans with a game-high 17 points and also added nine rebounds.

Friday night, NYU won a 59-58 thriller against Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Freshman Carl Yaffe scored 16 second-half points, including a pair of game-winning free throws with 14.6 seconds remaining, putting NYU up 59-58.

NYU will be back in action Friday night when they host the University of Chicago at 8 p.m. in a Tear It Up! event at Coles Sports Center.

"It will be the biggest game of the season," Jensen said. "We now have our work cut out for us."