Men's Hoops Holds Off USMMA, 76-70

Stein's Career Night Highlights Five Double-Digit Scoring Efforts

Andy Stein continued his strong early play Wednesday night.

Andy Stein recorded career highs of 18 points, eight rebounds and four blocks to help New York University surge past the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, 76-70, in non-conference men's basketball action Wednesday night at the Jerome S. Coles Sports Center.

Omar Meziab scored four of his 12 points and doled out two of his three assists while Kyle Stockmal (career-high 7 points) hit his first two collegiate three-pointers, the last off a Meziab feed, to conclude a 15-4 burst from that gave the Violets (4-2) a 46-37 lead with 10:55 remaining.

After calling a timeout, the Mariners (4-2) scored six unanswered points to climb within 46-43 with 8:15 remaining and forced the Violets to take a 60-second breather.

However, Keith Jensen sandwiched a three-pointer and a three-point play around two inside scores from Stein to increase their cushion to 56-44 with 5:44 left and put the game out of reach. Jensen led NYU in scoring for the sixth time in as many contests, finishing with a season-high 18 points for the third straight game.

"We got some real inside looks for Andy and a couple of clutch three-point shots," NYU head coach Joe Nesci said. "Defensively, I just thought we did a real good job."

Carl Yaffe and Derek Becker gave NYU five double-digit scorers for the third time this season, scoring 12 and 11 points, respectively. Becker produced all of his points in the final 20 minutes while also swiping three steals for the Violets, who shot 53.1% (26-for-49).

Ryan Samuel led Kings Point with 18 points, while Tom Izzo tallied 13 and Jon Snead added 10 the visitors shot nearly perfect from the foul line (21-for-22, 95.5%) but hit just 36.7% (22-for-60) of its shots, including 23.8% (5-for-21) from three-point range.

NYU's second-half prosperity came after a pronounced free-throw shooting disparity provided the early storyline as Kings Point took a 30-27 lead into the locker room. The Mariners, who led 20-10 at the outset, overcame their 34.5% shooting (10-for-29) during the early going by going a perfect 8-for-8 at the charity stripe. Samuel hit all four of his first-half attempts and scored a half-high 10 points for the Mariners.

Conversely, NYU went just 4-for-13 (30.8%) from the foul line during the opening period to offset solid early starts by Jensen and Meziab, who poured in eight points apiece before the break.

NYU returns to action Saturday, Dec. 12, when it takes a short trip over the Manhattan Bridge to face the New York City College of Technology for a noon tip-off in Brooklyn, NY.