Slow start to second half seals Richmond's fate

In a match-up of the two Atlantic 10 Conference players of the week, senior Ahmad Nivins of Saint Joseph's University outplayed University of Richmond sophomore Justin Harper as the Hawks beat the Spiders 68-58 Wednesday night at the Robins Center.

Nivins, a 6-foot-9 forward, was called the "best player in the Atlantic 10" by St. Joseph coach Phil Martelli. Nivins registered a double-double for the 12th time this season with 15 points and 14 rebounds.

"Our game plan was to really try to surround Nivins and try not to let him dominate the game," Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. "I thought we did a decent job with that."

Richmond jumped out to an early lead, but a 13-2 run by the Hawks over the course of seven minutes squandered it, turning a three-point Spider advantage into an eight-point deficit. Saint Joe's maintained its lead for the rest of the half, ending it leading 29-22.

"We just stopped scoring on offense," sophomore Kevin Anderson said. "We felt we were stopping them. They only had 29 points in the first half. We felt we did a good job collapsing on Nivins. We just went through a little drought were we couldn't score [and] couldn't make things fall."

Richmond came out of the break slow and saw the deficit grow to as many as 16 points. The Spiders trailed by double digits for most of the second half, but were able to cut the lead down to five on a three-pointer by sophomore Kevin Smith with only 44 seconds remaining.

"I thought that after we had such a good start that we would have been to be better throughout," Mooney said. "I think we went through a lull there in the beginning and middle of the second half that we were unable to overcome."

Harper entered Wednesday night averaging 23.5 points over his last two games, but was held to only seven points. Harper collected a team-high eight rebounds, including four offensive rebounds.

"I think he had some opportunities much like our team," Mooney said. "We didn't capitalize on the opportunities that we had. Certainly the next game we are going to want Justin to take a lot of shots and be in positions where he can help us to win."

Saint Joseph's senior Tasheed Carr came into the game averaging 13 points per game this season, but he had that many in the second half alone. Carr finished with 21 points, two shy of his season high that he set against University of Alabama on Nov. 26. The presence of Nivins allowed for Carr to take many uncontested shots.

"I give him credit for hitting shots and staying with their offense," Smith said.

Richmond could have moved up to a tie for second place with a win, but fell into a three-way tie for the fifth spot. The Spiders are now 3-2 in the A-10 and 11-9 overall.

The win capped off a 7-0 record for the Hawks in January. They remain in second place in the A-10 with a 5-0 record and are 12-7 overall.

Junior David Gonzalvez led the Spiders in scoring with 19 points before fouling out with 4.8 seconds left during the game. Anderson had 13 points and Smith added 10.

Besides the presence of Nivins, Richmond's struggles at the free-throw line hurt its chances of a victory. The Spiders did not attempt a free-throw in the first half and only went 4-11 from the line in the game.

Richmond will now travel to Temple University for a 6:30 p.m. game Saturday. Temple is another team that relies heavily on one player-senior guard Dionte Christmas.

"In philosophy it will be similar [to guarding Nivinns] in terms of everybody paying attention to him," Mooney said. "It's harder to surround a perimeter player of course because he has so much room out there. We will have to make sure that we are very, very close to him and everybody [is] really paying attention to him"