Men’s Basketball Fall at Emory 89-85

Jan. 27 – (ATLANTA, Ga.) – The Carnegie Mellon University men’s basketball team headed south to play Emory University, Sunday, January 27 in University Athletic Association (UAA) action in Atlanta, Georgia. The Tartans fell 89-85 in a shooting fest from the charity stripe. With the loss the Tartans move to 11-5 and 1-4 in the UAA, as the Eagles are now 10-6, 3-2.

Emory jumped out to an early 15-10 lead but a 9-2 run for Carnegie Mellon gave the Tartans a 19-17 lead with 8:28 to play in the half. During the run senior Geoff Kozak (Huntingdon, Pa./Huntingdon) drilled a trey from the top of the arc to knot the score at 17 apiece. Kozak’s three-pointer extended the Carnegie Mellon’s streak of consecutive games with a three-pointer to 176 games.

After three lead changes the Cardinal Gray scored eight unanswered points to take a 29-22 lead with 5:03 to play. Kozak scored seven of the Tartans eight unanswered. Carnegie Mellon took their biggest lead of the half, 39-28, with just over two minutes to play not to see it diminish. The Eagles ended the first stanza on an 11-2 run pulling within two (41-39) after the first twenty minutes of play.

Kozak led all scorers in the first half with 12 points including a 5-of-6 showing from the charity stripe and senior Greg Gonzalez (Southlake, Texas/Carroll) added ten. The Tartans shot 70% (14-20) from the line compared to the Eagles 61% (8-13)

Carnegie Mellon came out of the locker room with something to o prove after the Eagles run at the end of the first half. The Tartans did just that going on a 13-4 run extending their lead back to 11 (54-43) with 15:54 left in regulation.

Emory answered Carnegie Mellon’s run with an 18-5 run to take their first lead of the game since the 6:36 mark of the first half at 67-66 with 9:05 remaining in the contest. From that point on the game saw seven lead changes and three ties. The last lead change came with 4:26 on the clock when senior Spiros Ferderigos hit two foul shots for Emory giving the Eagles a 75-74 lead one they never lost going onto the 89-85 win.

The last 24 points of the contest all came from the charity strip as Carnegie Mellon scored their last field goal with 7:40 remaining and Emory had theirs with 2:04. The Tartans shot 36-of-52 (69.2%) from the line, as the Eagles 32-of-42 (76.2%).

Kozak led the Tartans with 20 points. Gonzalez cashed in with 14 and juniors Ryan Einwag (Pittsburgh, Pa./Baldwin) and Corey O’Rourke (Merion, Pa./St. Joe Prep) each had ten. Emory was led by sophomore Anthony Fernandez’s 23 points. Ferderigos and senior Dan Smith had 15 apiece.

The Tartans will be back in action Friday, February 1 as they entertain the Maroons of the University of Chicago at 8:00 p.m. on the hardwood of Skibo Gymnasium.