INDIANA, Pa. – The Slippery Rock men's basketball team lost a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division game on the road to Indiana University (Pa.), 88-79, Saturday.
 
Saturday's decision snaps The Rock's two-game winning streak and moves their record to 15-9 overall and 8-8 inside the PSAC. Meanwhile, IUP improved to 18-4 overall and 12-3 in league games.
 
With four games remaining in the regular season Slippery Rock sits in a tie alongside Edinboro for fourth place in the PSAC West standings. The top six teams in the final regular season standings qualify for the PSAC Tournament with the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds gaining the right to host opening-round games (the top two seeds earn first round byes).
 
Four of The Rock's five starters finished in double figures Saturday, led by Kerwin Prince's 23-point, seven-rebound, one-steal performance. Prince connected on 9-of-12 field goal attempts, including his first 3-pointer of the season, to go with four successful foul shots.
 
Dame Givner registered the first double-double of his collegiate career via 18 points, 11 rebounds, three steals and two assists. Fellow freshman guard RJ Sledge compiled 11 points, three assists, two steals, two rebounds and one block.
 
Isaac James chipped in 10 points and six rebounds, while Brady Mayo nearly made it five starters scoring double-digits at nine points as well as one steal.
 
Off the bench, Sheick Samoura chipped in nine eight points to round out SRU's top contributors.
 
Collectively, Slippery Rock shot 48.3 percent (28-of-58) from the field overall, but went just 5-for-17 (.294) from 3-point range and 18-for-26 (.692) at the foul line.
 
The Rock and Crimson Hawks traded baskets through the opening eight minutes of regulation, playing to 18-18 tie. James supplied SRU with all 10 of his points in the opening stage of the game.
 
However, IUP proceeded to go on a decisive 13-4 run over the following five minutes to open a nine-point advantage at 31-22. While Slippery Rock made several runs to pressure the host Crimson Hawks, Indiana ultimately never surrendered the lead through the final 31 minutes of regulation.
 
Every time Slippery Rock appeared poised to grab the lead it was thwarted by timely baskets from IUP.
 
Christian Moore turned what seemed likely to be a five-point Rock deficit going into the halftime break into eight points with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer. Then when SRU rattled off six consecutive points to start the second half, pulling to within two points (40-38), Indiana stretched its lead back out to three possessions thanks to a jumper from Dallis Dillard and another 3-pointer from Moore.
 
A five-minute scoring drought in the middle stages of the second half allowed Indiana to widen its lead to 14 points (64-50) with 7:42 to play. While The Rock battled back and trimmed Indiana's edge down to six points on five separate occasions over the game's final minutes it was unable to make a lasting push as Indiana converted 11 foul shots over the final 97 seconds en route to the nine-point win.
 
Indiana closed the contest shooting 47.4 percent (27-of-57) from the field overall, 30.8 percent (8-for-26) from 3-point range and 81.3 percent (26-of-32) at the foul line. IUP held slim advantages in both rebounding (35-31) and turnovers committed (11-12). Dillard led all players with a game-high 31 points.
 
Slippery Rock heads to No. 6 Gannon University 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18. SRU will look to avenge a 96-65 loss to the Golden Knights from earlier in the season at Morrow Field House.




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