BOX SCORE
Philadelphia, Penn. -- LaSalle University shot 69.2 percent in the first half ? taking a 17 point halftime lead -- and the Manhattan College men's basketball team couldn't recover from that New Year's Eve performance, losing to the Explorers 89-64 in a contest played at the Tom Gola Arena in Philadelphia. Manhattan's record now stands at 7-5 heading into the New Year and heavy conference play, while LaSalle?which has won three of its last four --improved its record to 7-5.
LaSalle cooled off only slightly in the second half, but still shot 60.7 percent for the contest. Ruben Guillandeaux led LaSalle scorers with a career high 22, to go along with 8 rebounds. Rodney Green chipped in with 18 points for LaSalle and Vernon Goodridge had 15. For Manhattan, senior Devon Austin led the Jaspers with 13 points and 5 rebounds. Antoine Pearson added 11 points for Manhattan..
LaSalle started the game hot and never really cooled off. Midway through the first half, the Jaspers had a push, with Austin keeping Manhattan in the game by hitting three 3 pointers on the way to 11 first half points, but then LaSalle picked up again in the latter stages of the first half to take the 48-31 advantage from which Manhattan could not recover, although they did pull within 13 points at 52-39 early in the second half off an 8-0 run.
The Jaspers next games will be up in the Buffalo area, taking on conference foes Niagara and Canisius. The Niagara game will tip off at 7 p.m. Saturday, January 3rd, while the Canisius game will start on Monday, January 5th at 7:30 p.m.
