LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- Brendan Monteiro poured in a game-high 26 points to lead the Bridgewater State University men's basketball team to a 77-72 victory over Ramapo College on Friday night at the D3hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bridgewater improves to 3-5 with the win while Ramapo falls to 4-6 with the setback.
Monteiro connected on 8 of 13 field goals including 4-for-7 from behind the arc. He also knocked down 6 of 8 free throw attempts.
Michael Lofton added a double-double for the Bears as he scored 13 points on 6 of 7 shooting and pulled down a game-high 13 rebounds. Kyle Gibson chipped in with 16 points and five boards, while Barrett Murphy scored ten points off the bench with all of those coming in the second half.
Bridgewater shot 52% (27-52) from the floor and drained 9 of 20 (45%) three-point attempts. The Bears' nine three-pointers marked a season-high and would ultimately be the deciding factor in the game.
Ramapo held a 35-29 advantage at the break as the Roadrunners received eight first half points from Elvonney Poole off the bench. The Ramapo reserves outscored the BSU bench by a margin of 14-0 over the first 20 minutes of action.
Ramapo took a 29-19 lead on a Barnes layup with 5:28 remaining in the opening stanza. Bridgewater, however, used a 10-2 run jump-started by a Justin Clark three-pointer to make it a two-point game (31-29) with just 41 seconds left. Gibson scored five of his seven first-half points during the run.
Frank Nock put an end to the run with a driving layup. The Roadrunners then took advantage of BSU's 12th turnover of the half as Poole beat the buzzer with another layup to give Ramapo the 35-29 lead at the intermission.
Trailing 43-34 early in the second half, the Bears scored 11 straight points in a span of a minute and a half highlighted by three trifectas by Monteiro to take a 45-43 lead.
After Poole knotted the score with a layup, Brian Grossman drained another three for the Bears to make it a 48-45 game. The Roadrunners responded with eight unanswered points, four coming from Joshua Daniell, to pull ahead 53-48 with 12:45 remaining.
Bridgewater, however, would outscore Ramapo 14-3 over the next five and a half minutes to take control of the game for good. The Roadrunners turned the ball over five times, committed four fouls and shot 1-for-6 from the floor and 1-for-5 at the line during that stretch.
The Bears would get up by as many as eight points five times over the final seven minutes of the game, while the Roadrunners would get no close than four.
Nock, Poole and Terry Hicks each finished with 11 points to lead Ramapo in the loss. All 12 players who saw time on the floor scored for the Roadrunners with seven players coming off the bench to account for 33 of the team's 72 points.
Ramapo held a 40-34 rebounding advantage for the game including a 16-7 edge on the offensive glass. The Roadrunners outscored the Bears 50-32 in the paint and 30-14 off turnovers, but shot just 45% (29-64) from the floor and 20% (2-10) from three-point range.
Both teams struggled mightily at the free throw line. The Bears went 14-for-25 (56%) at the charity stripe while the Roadrunners connected on 12 of 23 (52%) free throw attempts.
The D3hoops.com Classic continues for both teams this weekend. Ramapo will take on Carroll University at 6:00 PM (PST) on Saturday night, while Bridgewater will face Linfield College at 4:00 PM (PST) on Sunday afternoon.