NABC Division II Men's Basketball Rankings
KUTZTOWN, Pa. – The Kutztown University men's basketball team overcame a 12-point first-half deficit to defeat Philadelphia University, 70-67, in a non-conference battle inside of Keystone Arena on Tuesday night. It was the first time that the Golden Bears overcame a double-digit halftime deficit for a victory since 2009.
Earlier on Tuesday, Kutztown improved one position to No. 8 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches Division II Men's Basketball Rankings. No. 1 West Liberty received 14-of-16 first-place votes, as the top-six remained the same. Saginaw Valley State, Northwest Missouri State (one first-place vote), Wheeling Jesuit, California Baptist and St. Thomas Aquinas occupied spots two through six, with No. 7 Bellarmine moving up one position. No. 9 Barry moved into the top-10 and Alabama Huntsville rounded out the top-10. No. 11 Fairmont State earned the final first-place vote.
In the first half of play on Tuesday night, the obvious separation of the two teams was three-point shooting, as Philadelphia shot 6-8 (75%) from beyond the arc as opposed to Kutztown's 1-8 (12.5%).
The pace of the game was also a telling factor of the game with Philadelphia constantly pushing the tempo to get easy buckets in transition. Kutztown had difficulty keeping up with the smaller, quicker line-up of Philadelphia and would find itself down by 12 at the half.
In need of adjustments on both side of the ball, the Golden Bears came into the second half with aggression and cut the deficit to only two points, 50-52, with 10:49 left to play.
4:07 later, Kutztown tied the game up at 57 apiece. After giving up a field goal the following play, the Golden Bears wrestled to take the lead, 61-59, with 5:24 remaining.
KU would not relinquish the lead and would take the 70-67 victory to improve their unblemished record to 5-0.
The star for the Golden Bears was
Ethan Ridgeway (West Chester, Pa./Bayard Rustin), who notched a career-high 22 points and also dished out a game-high nine assists. Ridgeway did a lot of his damage by forcing contact at the basket and getting to the line, where he hit on eight of his nine free-throw attempts.
Dan Cuevas (Stroudsburg, Pa./Stroudsburg) and
Josh Johnson (Norristown, Pa./Norristown) each tallied 12 points, with Cuevas also posting seven rebounds, a block and two steals.
Anthony Lee (Willow Grove, Pa./Abington) held a team-high eight rebounds and also recorded seven points and a block.
Philadelphia was paced by Kaison Randolph, who led all scorers with 29 points to go along with a game-high nine rebounds. Brendan Kilpatrick and Jordan DeCicco posted 12 and 10 points, respectively.
The Golden Bears will have a few days to rest before hitting the road to compete in two Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) games against Pitt-Johnstown on Saturday, Dec. 3 and Indiana (PA) on Sunday, Dec. 4. Both games tip at 3 p.m.
