Moments after the renaming of a basketball court in a former coach’s honor, the Emerson men’s basketball team was handed a 88-65 loss to the nationally-ranked WPI Engineers, despite a hard-fought first half.
The Lions got on the board as sophomore forward Guillermo Gasset-Ruiz swiped the ball and found senior center Asher Gardiner for a one-handed slam dunk at the 19-minute mark. The Engineers tied the game with a layup moments later and buried a three-pointer for the lead with 18:15 remaining in the first half. WPI continued to pile points on the board, but Emerson was not deterred.
Gasset-Ruiz drained a three with 15:20 left to bring the Lions within three, 10-7. Emerson took another brief lead off of an Arico three-pointer at the 14:16 mark, but WPI responded once more.
The Engineers eventually led 35-27 when Gasset-Ruiz blocked a layup off the backboard, but the Lions couldn’t capitalize on offense. An Engineer three gave them a 38-27 advantage and Emerson called a timeout with 3:45 remaining. The Lions played catch-up for the rest of the period, trailing 43-33 at halftime.
The Engineers’ lead only grew in the second half, as they went up 54-38 with 15 minutes left. The Lions went on a 6-0 run to bring the deficit back to ten, but still couldn’t get the score to single digits. Sophomore guard Shay Roban brought the bench to its feet as he swished a three from the NEWMAC logo with 11:32 left, but the Engineers buried a three of their own to make it a 62-48 ball game.
WPI’s hot perimeter shooting continued, at one point giving them a 21-point lead with 6:30 remaining. Arico gave the Lions some life with a three-pointer at the 6:05 mark, but free throws and layups were the name of the game from that point on. The No. 22 Engineers won by 23 against the Lions, who dropped their third straight game and second in conference play.
Arico led the Lions with 15 points on 5/11 shooting from the field and 2/5 from three-point range, along with three steals, a block, and an assist. Junior center Linus Helmhold finished with 11 points (5/11 FG), three assists, and one block off the bench, and junior guard Jacob Armant tallied 10 points on 4/11 shooting to round out Emerson’s top-three scorers.
“WPI just beat us up,” head coach Bill Curley said. “They made us look like little boys out there, to tell you the truth. They got wherever they wanted with the ball. They passed wherever they wanted. They didn’t allow us to get the ball where we [wanted] it to, when we [wanted] it to.”
Curley said the team has not been good since returning from winter break.
“The break came at the worst time for us,” he said. “We were playing really well, and I think our guys are still on their vacation. Hopefully, we can get these classes started and get them back into their mode.”
Despite the result, Arico said he liked the team’s offensive execution, though the team’s defense must improve. The Engineers had five players score in double figures and made 11 of their 26 attempts from downtown (42%).
“We can’t just let them tee off threes,” he said. “We have to make it harder for teams like that to score. We’ll work on that moving forward.”
The men’s basketball team will travel to Worcester, Mass., on Tuesday to battle Clark University at 5 p.m. The game is a rematch of last season’s NEWMAC semifinals, where the No. 2 Cougars beat the No. 6 Lions 78-70.
“Playing Clark, we always have motivation every single time, it’s a chippy game,” Gardiner said. “They’re one of the teams we want to beat every single year.”
