MILWAUKEE, Wis. (November 27, 2024) – The Stonehill College men's basketball team fell at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday night, 94-59, in a first-ever meeting with the No. 10/11 ranked Marquette University.
 
LEADERS

• Graduate student Amir Nesbitt (Newport News, Va.) scored a team-high 14 points to go with four assists on 6-10 shooting from the field.
• Freshman Hermann Koffi (Quebec City, Quebec) notched 13 points and was tied for a team-high four rebounds.
• Sophomore Louie Semona (Cincinnati, Ohio) and senior Christopher Melis (Chappaqua, N.Y.) led the team with five assists each.
• Marquette's David Joplin was the game's top-scorer with 27 points, going 10-12 from the field and 4-5 from deep. Joplin also had a game-high seven rebounds.
• Kam Jones (6-7) and Demarius Owens (5-8) each had 14 points for the Golden Eagles.

FIRST HALF

• Junior Chas Stinson (Charlotte, N.C.) made a backdoor cut to the basket to score the game's opening bucket off a nice find from Nesbitt.
• Marquette went on a 19-6 run, with David Joplin scoring 11 of the 19 Golden Eagles' points with three consecutive makes from deep.
• Koffi sunk the first three of the game for the Skyhawks to spark a quick run for Stonehill that trimmed the deficit to six, 21-15, halfway through the first half.
• Meuser hit back-to-back three-pointers to keep Stonehill within six but Marquette would respond, making 10 of its next 13 shots, fueling a 24-8 run as the Golden Eagles took their largest lead of the first half, 51-29, with 1:18 on the clock.
• Nesbitt would make the last bucket of the half with a pull-up jumper from the midrange as the teams went into the break with Marquette ahead, 51-31.
• Marquette shot 62.5% (20-32) from the field and 56.5% (8-15) from deep while Stonehill also shot the ball well from the field, going 13-23 (56.5%) in the first half.

SECOND HALF

• The Skyhawks shot the ball well to start the second half (7-12; 58.3%) with six different scorers contributing during a run that cut the Marquette lead to 17, 67-50, with 12:38 left to play.
• The Golden Eagles made six straight shots after that, building their largest lead of the game, 79-52.
• Marquette closed out the game on a 27-9 run, winning 94-59 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis.
• The Golden Eagles ended with a 60.7% (37-61) shooting clip from the field and shot 47.6% (10-21) deep.

NOTEWORTHY

• This was head coach Chris Kraus's 300th game at the helm of the Skyhawks. He record sits at 152-148 (.505) and his 300 games as head coach are the second most all-time in Stonehill history behind Ray Pepin (312).
• Kraus also has the second-most games coached by any Canadian-born head coach in NCAA history, trailing Basketball Hall of Famer Pete Newell, who has 356 games under his belt.
• Stonehill is now 0-1 against Marquette all-time, 0-2 against the Big East this season (at Providence), and 0-5 against the Big East all-time since moving up to the Division I level in 2022.
• The Skyhawks combined for a season-best 22 assists, this being the fifth time they've reached at least 15 assists. Stonehill is 3-2 in such games. This is the most assists in a game for the Skyhawks since January 5, 2019, when Stonehill had 24 in a win over LIU Post.
• Nesbitt scored in double figures for the third straight game, averaging 14 points and four assists per game over that stretch.

UP NEXT

• Stonehill returns home to Easton, Mass. to take on Quinnipiac at Merkert Gym on Sunday, Dec. 1 at 4 p.m. as the Skyhawks and Bobcats face off for the third consecutive season. Quinnipiac has won the previous two meetings.

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