Senior forward Brian Gilmore scored a career-high 28 points, including 18 in the first half alone, to lead the AU men's basketball team to their sixth-straight victory, 79-49, over Colgate University Saturday afternoon. The win improves the Eagles' record to 11-6 on the season and a perfect 3-0 in the Patriot League.
The Eagles got off to a red-hot start and never looked back. A 15-0 run in the opening minutes, with Gilmore scoring 11 points on three three-pointers during this stretch, quickly put the game out of reach for the Raiders.
Colgate attempted to come back throughout the first half of play, cutting the lead down to 18-7 with 11 minutes remaining in the opening period but this would be as close as the AU would let Colgate get, as they pushed the lead up to 20, at 40-20, entering halftime.
The half truly belonged to Gilmore, who scored his 18 points on seven of 11 shooting from the floor, including four of six from beyond the three-point line. Teammate senior guard Garrison Carr scored nine points as the team connected on 65.4 percent of their shots in the opening half.
The second half started just as well for both the Eagles and Gilmore, who recorded ten points in the second half alone.
Gilmore's three-pointer with just over five minutes remaining in the game gave him a new career high of 28 points and put the Eagles up by 27 at 68-41.
Junior guard Matthew Wilson and freshman guard Simon McCormack also saw playing time in the closing moments, each scoring two points to help contribute to the final score of 79-49 in favor of AU.
Gilmore finished with 28 points on 11 of 16 from the floor and six of eight from three-point land. Freshman forward also set a career-high in scoring, with ten points of his own.
The Eagles have now won six straight games by a double-digit margin, the longest such streak in school history since the 1958-1959 season and only the second longest streak to the 1949-1950 season.
The AU team will look for a seventh straight win on Saturday, when they travel to Worcester, Mass., to take on College of the Holy Cross. The game tips off at 2 p.m. and will be shown nationally on ESPNU.
You can reach this staff writer at jhall@theeagleonline.com.
