Men’s Basketball Can’t Find Their Rhythm in 92-55 Loss to Williams

The men’s basketball team traveled to Williams College on Tuesday night and fell to the Ephs 92-55.
First year Shereef Taylor finished with 18 points on 9-13 from the field to lead the Hawks. Junior Lee Bertram and senior Matt Hauser each added 10 points with Bertram grabbing a team high nine boards.
Williams dominated for all twenty minutes of the first half, including taking an early 9-0 lead barely two minutes into the game and never looked back. Bertram finally put the Hawks on the board with a short-jumper at 17:50, coming off a timeout. The Ephs then pushed their lead to 23-6. Taylor made a jump shot at 11:45, which was the last basket the Hawks would score until Jayquan Anderson hit a jump shot at 6:45, en route to a 54-22 halftime score.
The Ephs shot 48% from the field in the first half, including making 10 of 20 from long range. The Hawks were held to just 28% shooting in the first half and didn’t make a three-pointer (0 for 7). First year guard Shereef Taylor scored 12 points on 6 of 8 shooting for New Paltz in the first twenty minutes.
New Paltz was unable to recover from the halftime deficit and trailed by as many as 46 in the second half.
New Paltz will break for a couple weeks for finals and the holiday break. The Hawks won’t play again until December 29th, when they take on Wheaton College on the campus of NYU as part of the first round of the NYU HolidayTournament. Game time is 8:00 pm.