Crusaders Drop Road Game 81-68 At Sacred Heart

Sunday, December 07, 2014

GoLocalWorcester Sports Team

Justin Burrell

The Holy Cross men's basketball team (4-2 ) lost on the road to (4-3) Sacred Heart University 81-68 at the William H. Pitt Center. The win is Holy Cross's second of the season and second in three games.

See the five takeaways slideshow below.

The Crusaders were up 9-8 early in the game before Sacred Heart scored seven straight points to pull ahead 15-9 midway through the first half. The Pioneers were ahead 24-21 with three minutes left in the first half before ending the frame on a 16-6 run to go up 40-27 at halftime.

Sacred Heart cruised in the second half, as the Crusaders never got closer then seven points the rest of the way.

Senior guard, Justin Burrell, and sophomore guard ,Anthony Thompson, led Holy Cross with 16 points each, while Malcolm Miller added 15 points and six rebounds in the loss.

Sacred Heart was led by Cane Broome, who had a game high 25 points.

Next up, the Crusaders host the Hartford Hawks on Tuesday, December 9. Tip off is set for 7 p.m.

For tickets, click here

For a further look at the Holy Cross loss to Sacred Heart, see the five takeaways slideshow below.

Related Slideshow: Five Takeaways from Holy Cross’s 81-68 Loss to Sacred Heart

Here are five takeaways from the game.

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Malcolm Miller

Just looking at the points that MIller put up in the game is a little decieving because he did not have a great shooting night. Miller had 15 points on 4 of 15 shooting, including one of six from three-point land.

Miller did shoot more free throws then anyone on the team, taking eight shots from the charity stripe and makeing six of them.

Miller also added six rebounds and two steals in the game.

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Turnovers

Holy Cross did a great job of holding onto the ball in this game, only turning it over nine times. Sacred Heart only had nine points off of those turnovers.

No one on the Crusaders had more then two turnovers in the game which is very impressive.

On the other side, Holy Cross forced Sacred Heart into 16 turnovers, resulting in 15 points.

The Crusaders held onto the ball and forced turnovers which is a good sign. They will look to do this on a consistent basis going forward.

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Assists

Of the 22 shots that the Crusaders made in the game, they only had eight assists led Malachi Alexander with four and Justin Burrell with three.

Meanwhile, Sacred Heart moved the ball well. On the 27 shots they made, they had 18 assists. Phil Gaetano led the Pioneers with 10 assists of his own.

For Holy Cross they have to move the ball a little better, make the extra pass. Obviously, assists depends on shot making and Holy Cross struggled with that in the game. Maybe, making the extra pass would open up a better shot.

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Bench points

Mitchell Hahn led the Crusaders bench with nine points after having a career high 22 points in the last game against Albany.

Other then him, the Crusaders got nothing from their bench as Cullen Hamilton and Malachi Alexander had one point each. Alexander played 20 minutes and Hamilton played 15 minutes in the contest.

Meanwhile the Sacred Heart bench had 23 points, led by Jordan Allen with 14

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Points in the paint

One of the reasons that Holy Cross lost this game was due to the points in the pain statistic. The Crusaders got smoked in the paint 42-26 as Sacred Heart just did what they wanted and that got them to the free throw line 30 times in the contest.

Sacred Heart got themselves easy shots and because of that shot 55 percent from the field compared to Holy Cross who shot only 32 percent.

Holy Cross has to defend the paint better on the defensive end go into the paint more on the offensive end.