Men’s Basketball’s Early Second Half Run Not Enough in Setback to Emory

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) - The Carnegie Mellon University men's basketball team hosted Emory University on Friday, February 19 in University Athletic Association (UAA) play and dropped an 83-68 contest.  The loss now puts the Tartans at 9-14 overall and 2-10 in UAA play while the Eagles improve to 17-6 and 10-2.

A jumper by Carnegie Mellon sophomore Ryan Maha (West Mifflin, Pa.) pulled the score to 20-16 in favor of Emory at the 12-minute mark of the first half.  From there, the Eagles used a 16-4 run over the next six minutes to take a 36-20 and eventually led 53-27 at the half.

Emory turned 11 Tartans first half turnovers into 23 points while the Tartans managed to force only one Emory mishap.  The visitor's had the hot hand after the first 20 minutes of play, as the converted 11-of-17 from behind the arc and shot 50.0% from the floor while the Tartans shot 43.5%.

Carnegie Mellon opened the second half of play on a 24-3 run, holding Emory without a field over the first 10 minutes as the Eagles missed their first 16 shots of the half.  The run pulled the Tartans to within five at 56-51. The Eagles responded scoring the next seven points to push the score to 63-51, and never trailed by less than double digits the rest of the night.

Carnegie Mellon ended the game shooting 46.8% from the floor to Emory's 38.5%. The Tartans took better care of the rock in the second half as the turned the ball over seven times to the Eagles eight.

Junior Jack Serbin (New Albany, Ohio) tabbed his 14th double-double for the Tartans in the setback. The junior scored a team-high 15 points while collecting a game-high 14 rebounds.  Maha was the only other Tartan to score in double figures as he finished with 11.

Adam Gigax led the Eagles with 20points.  Davis Rao chipped in with 15 and Will Trawick and Jonathan Terry each had 11.

On Sunday, February 21, the Tartans host University of Rochester at 12:00 p.m.