For the first time this season, the men’s basketball team walked off the floor of Ben Light Gymnasium on the losing end. The Bombers fell to Nazareth College 82–76 today in the first round of the Empire 8 Tournament.

The Blue and Gold trailed for the majority of the game and never led by more than five points. The Golden Flyers had the hot hands and were unstoppable from the floor. They shot a 63.6 field goal percentage and a 70.8 field goal percentage in the first half. Sophomore guard Chris Cruz said he thought Ithaca played well on defense but Nazareth was sinking shots despite the Bombers’ best efforts.

“They made a lot of tough shots – you can’t really fault them for that,” Cruz said. “We played pretty good defense for a little while, but didn’t get the pace as fast as we wanted to. We kind of played down to their level and didn’t get the stops that we needed at the end.”

At the end of the first half, Nazareth had extended its lead to 37–28 and led by as much as 15 during the second half. However, the South Hill squad cut the Nazareth lead to two points with 5:17 remaining. That’s as close as Ithaca got though as the Golden Flyers pulled away.

“They probably played the best game they played all year,” senior guard Sean Burton said. “The fact that we kept it close for the whole game, especially coming back in the second half is a credit to our hard work and not giving up.”

The Blue and Gold had defeated Nazareth twice prior today’s matchup – 122–90 Jan. 9 and 113–86 Feb. 20. Senior guard Brendan Rogers said it was difficult to stop the Golden Flyers this time around because they adjusted to Ithaca’s fast style of play.

“Every time they got the ball, they held it,” Rogers said. “They weren’t going to shoot with 10 seconds on the shot clock.”

With the loss, the Bombers’ only chance for entry into the NCAA tournament is through an at-large bid. The team will find out Monday if it will receive one.