After a season-long six game road trip, the AU men’s basketball team came home and dominated Colgate University 73-63 before a packed Bender Arena on Sunday.
Stephen Lumpkins scored in double digits for the fifth consecutive game, finishing with a team-high 19 points, five boards and four blocks. Vlad Moldoveanu tallied 16 points and seven rebounds, while junior Steve Luptak exploded for a career-high 18 points.
The Eagles, now 1-2 in Patriot League play, got the crowd into it early with their first points coming from a Lumpkins dunk. A few quick points by Moldoveanu and sophomore Simon McCormack allowed AU to quickly seize a six-point lead, though Colgate responded with a series of great plays by Yaw Gyawu and Ben Johnson.
| Men's Basketball | |
| AU | 73 |
| Colgate | 63 |
| Washington, D.C. |
The second half was lopsided in the Eagles favor. AU made over 60 percent of their shots in the second period, while also holding Colgate to 34 percent. Lumpkins, a player whom AU Coach Jeff Jones praised as the team’s “catalyst” was key in the paint on both ends of the court. In fact, it was his dunk with 2:25 remaining that again set off the Bender crowd and all but sealed an AU victory.
“He’s been working really hard to just be more efficient and make his opportunities count,” Jones said. “When he does that, it makes life easier for everyone else.”
Luptak, who has not been a high-scorer this season, bucketed 18 points on Sunday for his highest total of the year.
“Our post players were doing a great job of kicking the ball out [to the perimeter]. We were really focusing on getting it down low in the second half, and [Colgate] was just leaving us open,” Luptak said. “It’s my job to knock down the shots and luckily I did that today.”
AU’s defense also played a major role in the victory, as the Red Raiders shot only 38 percent over the course of the game. The efforts of McCormack, Joe Hill and others held Colgate’s Kyle Roemer, currently the second leading scorer in the Patriot League, to only 12 points from the floor.
“We competed all game today and everyone was ready to take the extra step and close out the game,” Luptak said. “We did all the little things to win.”
AU played all 40 minutes with a confident swagger and Jones echoed some optimism after the game.
“We’ve been telling our team to have fun, be excited. We’re losing some games and nobody wants to lose, but it could be worse,” Jones said. “We want to win and we need to work towards that, but the process itself has to be fun.”
Next up for the Eagles is a much anticipated matchup at West Point as they take on the Army Black Knights this Wednesday.
“With a young team, a win can be kind of a stepping stone, but we’ve already talked in the locker room about how hard it is to play at West Point and how tough Army’s experienced players are,” said Jones. “It’s going to be a dogfight.”
The win over Colgate puts American right in the thick of things in the Patriot League; AU is now in a five-way tie for fourth place.
You can reach this writer at sports@theeagleonline.com.
