INDIANA, Pa.—The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team dropped its third straight game with an 89-71 defeat on the road at Indiana University (Pa.) in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division action Saturday.
 
The Rock drop to 8-8 overall and 3-7 in PSAC action, while Indiana improves to 11-5 overall and 8-3 in league games.
 
Slippery Rock opened the game strong and led 22-21 with 9:03 to play in the first half, but the Crimson Hawks closed the half on a 23-10 run to take a 44-32 lead into halftime.
 
The Rock cut the deficit to eight points early in the second half, but Indiana pushed it back out to double figures the rest of the way.
 
Slippery Rock put together a stronger shooting performance than the previous two losses, finishing the game shooting 45.3 percent from the field (24-of-53) and 30 percent from 3-point (3-of-10), but The Rock struggled at the free throw line. Indiana was called for 24 fouls in the game and sent SRU to the line for 37 free throw attempts, but The Rock managed to convert on just 20 of those (54.1 percent). On the other side, SRU was called for 25 fouls and Indiana went 20-of-29 at the free throw line (69 percent).
 
The Crimson Hawks also shot lights out in the game, connecting on 66.7 percent of their attempts in the first half and finishing the game at 58.2 percent from the field (32-of-55) and 50 percent from 3-point (5-of-10).
 
Cornelius Brown paced five Slippery Rock players to double figure scoring efforts. He finished with a team-high 17 points. Malcolm Richardson added 16 points, Naquil Jones scored 13 points and Chaquille Pratt finished with a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds. Abdul King tallied 10 points to cap the top scorers. Those five starters accounted for 67 of the team's 71 points as The Rock's bench was outscored 36-4.
 
Indiana was led by Brandon Norfleet with 26 points and Daddy Ugbede with 22 points.
 
Slippery Rock will look to bounce back Wednesday night with a road trip to Clarion for a PSAC West matchup.