Fairleigh Rally Falls Short in Overtime Against Rutgers, 70-66
Knights come back from 15 point second half deficit.  

Box Score

Raleigh, N.C. – The Fairleigh Dickinson University men’s basketball team rallied from a 15-point deficit in the second half against Rutgers to send the game into overtime, but fell short, 70-66.  Juniors Iman Mattox and Brandon Edwards led the Knights’ comeback with 19 points and 15 points, respectively.

Rutgers held a 27-25 lead at the half and stretched the margin to 46-31 at the 15:14 mark by opening up the second frame with a 19-6 spurt.  After a media timeout the Knights came out with some pressure and went on a 19-4 run, led by eight points from Mattox and seven from Edwards, to pull within 55-52 with 3:05 to go.

Trailing by five with 49 seconds left, the Knights scored the final five points in regulation as Doug Whitler’s jumper with 14 seconds remaining sent the game into overtime.

Ricky Shields opened up the extra period with a jumper to give Rutgers a two-point lead and Mattox answered with a layup to knot the game again.  James Coleman came back with one of his four three-pointers to put the Scarlet Knights up 64-61, but Lionel Bomayako responded with his own three to tie the game at 64-64.  After Rutgers went up 68-64, Whitler hit a layup to pull the Knights within two and the Knights had one more chance to tie the game again, but Edwards was stripped in the paint by Jason McCoy to seal the contest.

Edwards hit on 6-of-9 from the field, pulled down eight rebounds and collected two steals.  Mattox connected on 7-of-14 from the field, including 3-of-6 from beyond the arc and added seven boards.

“We played real hard today and I thought we had them, but a couple of bounces didn’t go our way,” said Mattox.

Fairleigh Dickinson returns to action on Saturday, November 24^th at American.