WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ – Jack Collins led three in double figures with 17 points, but Monmouth University Men's Basketball was defeated Saturday afternoon by Elon University, 75-68 in the final home game of the season.
Elon's lead was never more than 12, and midway through the half, three different Hawks scored consecutively, capped by a Vuga jumper to cut it to a 58-53 deficit. Elon scored seven straight before Collins stopped that streak with a three, and a late
Jakari Spence triple cut it to five in the final minute but the Hawks got no closer, falling 75-68.
Monmouth led in the early stages, with Collins converting a four-point play to make it 16-12 MU. Elon used the three to take the lead, and ultimately opened a 10-point lead before Monmouth made a push. Four straight foul shots and buckets from
Myles Foster and
Klemen Vuga trimmed it to a two-point game before Elon scored the final six to lead 43-35 at the break.
NOTES AND QUOTES
"Take your hat off to Elon. They really executed their stuff. It's hard to speed them up and they just outplayed us. I thought we started off well, we were scoring the ball and I knew the game would get interesting because we haven't played 40 minutes against zone. We played offense just fine, we just couldn't guard them." – Head Coach
King Rice
"Credit to our fans. We've had one of the hardest years since I've been here and credit to them that they kept coming out the way they did this season and supported our young men and supported our staff. We take out hats off to all the Monmouth fans for coming out on a Saturday and supporting these kids the way they need to be supported." – Rice on the fans
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Jarvis Vaughan made his first start of the season on Senior Day.
-This marked Monmouth's final home game of the season.
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Jack Collins scored in doubles for the 14
th time this season.
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Klemen Vuga scored 16 points, with the last three games being the highest three scoring contests of his career.
-This was the only matchup of the season with Elon.
-Monmouth honored its seniors before the game on the court, including forward
Jarvis Vaughan and manager Justin Dempsey.
NUMBERS CRUNCH
-Each team scored 26 points in the paint.
-There were six ties and three lead changes.
-MU shot 38% to Elon's 48%.
UP NEXT
-Monmouth visits Hampton on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m.
