Box Score
San Francisco, CA -- Academy of Art University men's basketball shot nearly 50 percent from the field in the first half, but wound up falling to Dominican University 82-62 on Saturday night at Kezar Pavilion. Junior guard Lance Olivier topped last game's performance with a new season-high 13 points along with three rebounds, and two assists. The Urban Knights drop to 0-15 overall, 0-5 in PacWest while the Penguins improve to 5-11 overall, 2-3 in PacWest.
The teams battled through a very close first 10 minutes in which the lead changed four times. Although Dominican's advantage was four points midway through, a layup by freshman guard Ivan Prema, Jr. and a long ball by junior guard Lance Olivier erased the deficit and gave AAU a one-point lead. From there, the squads were deadlocked two more times before the Penguins finished the half on a 15-4 burst.
At halftime, the Knights trailed the Penguins 40-29, but AAU had shot 48 percent from the field. Junior forward Jonathan Burnett had eight points and had missed just one shot (4-of-5 FG) while Olivier had seven points at the break.
DUC pushed its advantage early in the second period only to have Academy of Art cut it back down to 10 points twice. The second time occurred with 18:31 remaining when junior guard Phillip Samuel was fouled on a three-point attempt, converted three free throws at the line, and then promptly hit a jumper the next time down. Unfortunately for AAU, 10 points was as close as the home team would come because Dominican then opened up a 19-point margin utilizing a 15-6 run. The Penguins maintained that lead en route to their second conference victory.
Olivier had a season-high and team-high 13 points (including two made 3-pointers) to go with his three rebounds and two assists. Samuel turned in 11 points in 15 minutes of action with a perfect 5-for-5 night from the foul line. Freshman guard Jordan Knox was the third Knight to score in double figures and he had 10 points off the bench.
Dominican University was paced by 31 points (10-for-10 FTs) and seven rebounds from guard Austin Bryan. Guard Xavier Muldrow contributed 11 points off the bench with seven of those points coming from the free throw line. The Penguins shot just under 50 percent from the floor in the contest.
Academy of Art University now gets set for a Hawaii roadtrip that begins at the end of this month. The Knights will play all four of the PacWest's teams on the islands beginning with Hawaii Pacific on Jan. 30. A rematch against Hawaii-Hilo comes up next on Feb. 1 followed by contests against BYU-Hawaii on Feb. 3 and Chaminade on Feb. 5.
