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MANSFIELD – The Bloomsburg University men's basketball competed in the postseason for the second straight year, but fell on the road Saturday night in a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) first round game to Mansfield University, 101-68 at Decker Gymnasium.
 
Saturday night's playoff game was delayed over an hour and tipped at 8:05 p.m. from its initial start time of 7 p.m. The game was delayed because Bloomsburg's Nasir Jones (Philadelphia/Franklin Learning Center) shattered the backboard on a dunk during the pre-game shoot-around.
 
Senior guard Nnamdi Njoku (Westampton, NJ/Rancocas Valley) returned to the lineup for the first time since Jan. 12 after missing 13 games due to injury. He scored a career-high 22 points on 6-for-10 shooting including four three-pointers. He also grabbed a team-high five rebounds and dished out two assists in 33 minutes.
 
Junior guard Lorenzo Christmas (Norristown/Norristown) scored 15 points, 12 of which came in the first half, and grabbed three steals. Jones was Bloomsburg's third double-digit scorer, scoring all 10 of his points in the second half.
 
As a team, Bloomsburg shot 47.1 percent from the field, the fourth-highest mark of the season. BU's 18 turnovers and -14 rebounding margin (22-36) played significant factors in preventing it from mounting a second half comeback.
 
After Wes Lyons (Millville/Millville)' layup cut the early deficit to 11-9 with 16:01 left in the first half, Mansfield countered with a 17-0 run spanning over 4:53 to take a 28-9 lead at the 10:48 mark. Mansfield shot 6-for-11 in the run with four free throws, as the Huskies shot missed all six of their shot attempts and committed four turnovers.
 
Njoku spotted up and made his first three-point attempt to give Bloomsburg some offensive firepower moments later. Sparked off a Christmas layup the previous possession, the Huskies went on a 10-0 run to cut the Mansfield lead to 10 at 32-22 at the 7:37 mark.
 
Mansfield scored the final three points of the half and took a 53-35 lead into the locker room. Bloomsburg was out-rebounded 18-7 in the first half as six of MU's rebounds were on the offensive end. Both teams shot over 50 percent from the field (BU, 54.2; MU, 61.3) and from beyond the arc (BU, 5-for-10; MU, 6-for-12) in the first half.
 
Bloomsburg looked to chip into its deficit to start the second half as Lyons got the second half started. Unfortunately for the Huskies, Mansfield responded to Bloomsburg's second half-opening bucket with a 15-1 run to stretch the lead to 68-38 at the first media timeout.
 
From there, the Huskies were only able to bring the Mansfield lead to less than 30 points on one occasion.
 
Lyons chipped in nine points and a team-high five rebounds for the Huskies. He shot 4-for-8 from the field and had two steals.
 
The Mountaineers shot an impressive 59 percent from the field including 15 three-pointers, the most for a Bloomsburg opponent this season. Leading Mansfield was Charles Becoats who scored 21 points with a 6-for-10 performance from three-point range.
 
Also scoring in double figures for Mansfield was Joe Bell (14), Chuck Harper (13), Onyema Utti (13), and Tremaine Bowman (11). It is the second time this season it scored 100 or more points and first since the first game of the regular season. Mansfield moves on to play East Stroudsburg Tuesday night in a PSAC quarterfinal game.
 
The Huskies return their top five scorers from this season and applaud the careers of seniors Daniel Kusnyer (Wexford/Hillsborough CC) and Njoku.