PHILADELPHIA, PA – Nikita Konstantynovskyi netted a career-best 22 points, and Xander Rice added 20 as Monmouth University Men's Basketball topped Belmont University in the first game of the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic, 93-84 at The Palestra Friday.
 
After Belmont trimmed the deficit to eight, Rice made a three and then Jaret Valencia scored inside to make it a 14-point margin again. When Belmont shaved the advantage to six at 6:04, Jakari Spence made a critical three late in the shot clock to push it back to nine. The Bruins got it to six late again, but MU went 8-10 from the line down the stretch to secure the win.
 
Monmouth jumped to a 12-6 lead with Konstantynovskyi scoring eight points in the first 3:50, and the lead grew to 18-11 on back-to-back triples from Rice and Jayden Doyle. Abdi Bashir continued his strong shooting, converting a four-point play at the 9:00 mark before Jack Holmstrom made consecutive threes to push the lead to 10 and force a Belmont timeout. The teams traded buckets down the stretch, but another Bashir three helped MU to a 14-point lead at the break.
 
NOTES AND QUOTES
 
"All these guys can play. It's tough when you're trying to integrate young guys and give them time, but the older guys that have been there with you, you have to give them their chances. That was a big-time win, Belmont's going to win a whole bunch of games and I'm glad we caught them today." – Head Coach King Rice
 
"We had the right mindset, my teammates helped me and we executed the plays. We played really hard and I had the right energy and made my shots with my teammates getting it to me." – Center Nikita Konstantynovskyi


"Nikita's a grown man. He's super mature, he's a college graduate and we had confidence that he was going to come along. We've seen him make all these shots in practice and workouts every single day, so we knew it was coming and it paid off tonight so I'm super happy for him." –Guard Xander Rice
 
-Monmouth scored a season-high 93 points, the most since the 100 in the 2023 CAA Tournament against Hampton.
-Monmouth scored 181 points the last two games, the most since 12/27-28, 2020 against Canisius, when the Hawks also totaled 181.
-Nikita Konstantynovskyi netted a career best 22 points.
-Jaret Valencia grabbed a career-best 11 rebounds.
-Konstantynovskyi and Rice became the first duo to score 20 each in a game since February of last season, when Myles Foster and Klemen Vuga did so against Hampton.
-MU is now 3-2 against current MVC members, winning for the first time since 2005 (Southern Illinois).
-Monmouth won its first ever game in its first meeting against Belmont.
-Xander Rice opened the season with five straight games in double figures, the first time a Hawk has done so since Deion Hammond in 2020.
-Jayden Doyle made his first three of the season.
-Jack Holmstrom posted his first game with multiple threes this season.
-Every Hawk to play in the game scored, the first time that has happened since 12/22/22 against Yale.
-MU scored 51 points in the first half, the highest scoring half of the season for Monmouth.
-Monmouth dished out a season-best 17 assists.

NUMBERS CRUNCH
-Monmouth shot 50.8%, the second game in a row MU topped 50% shooting.
-MU was better than Belmont off the bench, 33-27.
-The Hawks were better in the paint, 44-38.
-MU led for 38:04 and did not trail after the 18:43 mark of the opening half.

UP NEXT
-Monmouth continues the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. at The Palestra, taking on Lafayette. The game will air on ESPN+ and on the radio via the Monmouth Digital Network.