WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ – Deion Hammond (Mitchellville, MD/Riverdale Baptist School) became the first Hawk in nearly two years to put up a 30-point game, topping his career-high in the process, but Monmouth University Men's Basketball (13-10, 7-5 MAAC) dropped its first home game of the season to Saint Peter's University (11-11,  8-5 MAAC) 81-69.

Mustapha Traore's (Philadelphia, PA/The Phelps School) basket at 15:20 gave the Hawks their largest second half lead of five, but an 8-0 run put the Peacocks back on top. MU fought back, and a Hammond three preceded a Melik Martin (York, PA/York Catholic) free throw that tied things at 55 with 9:45 to go. A 6-0 spurt put SPU up 61-55, and MU would get it within three multiple times but couldn't get any closer as the Peacocks made nine free throws in the final two minutes to seal the road win.

With Saint Peter's leading 8-2 early, Hammond went on his own 14-0 run, knocking in three triples, including an and one, in addition to a pair of free throws and a baseline runner to put MU up 16-8. A slow first half that had 24 combined foul calls saw the Hawks lead by as many as eight at 13:21 after Ray Salnave (Elmont, NY/Benjamin N. Cardozo) banked in a jumper. SPU slowly chipped away at the lead, eventually tying the game at the 6:29 mark before taking the lead at 5:05. MU responded to take a four-point lead into the locker room, capped by a Hammond transition three from the win to make it 33-29.

NOTES AND QUOTES
"All the credit to Saint Peter's. They are a much tougher team than us right now and they're a much more together team than us right now. Today it really showed that they are very hungry. We're not hungry enough right now. We just haven't been as sharp lately." – Head Coach King Rice

-Deion Hammond posted the 49^th game in Monmouth history of 30 or more points.
-Hammond's career-high 30 is the first 30-point effort by a Hawk since Micah Seaborn on February 22, 2018 against Rider.
-Hammond is the fourth MU player in the King Rice era to record a 30+ point game (Justin Robinson 3x, Andrew Nicholas 2x, Micah Seaborn 1x).
-Hammond's six threes are a career-high, and the most in a game by a Hawk this season.
-Monmouth dropped its first home game of the season after winning eight in a row.
-George Papas has his streak of 22 made free throws in a row snapped, dating back to 11/26 against Radford. He has missed just two from the line all season.
-Ray Salnave scored in double figures for the 51^st time in his career.

 NUMBERS CRUNCH
-The game featured 47 fouls and 61 combined free throws.
-SPU shot 44.6% compared to 36.2 for MU.
-Monmouth topped Saint Peter's in points off turnovers, 17-14.
-Monmouth posted an even assist-turnover ratio as a team (10-10).
-Quinn Taylor led SPU in scoring with 15 points.

UP NEXT
-Monmouth makes the annual swing through Western New York, and will play Canisius on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. The game will air on ESPN3 and the Watch ESPN app as well as on the radio via the Shore Sports Network.