Box Score
San Francisco, CA -- The Academy of Art University men's basketball team has had many different pieces put up big scoring games, and although they hit a snag against Chaminade on Thursday afternoon, freshman guard Herman Pratt IV became the fifth different player to score 20 points for the Urban Knights this year. The 'Swords made more three-pointers (11) than two-pointers (10), which factored in big in their gameplan as the Knights played strong and brought it within five in the second half but came up short in the 69-55 loss.

The Knights started out hot, and Pratt was the hot hand, as he scored the first eight points for the Urban Knights on two three-pointers and a layup to put his team up 8-3. ART U stretched it to five on a layup from Rodrigo Maza at 11:35 and held the lead until the Swords tied it up at 16-16 with 10:38 to play. That was part of an 11-0 run that saw the Silverswords eventually take a ten point lead on a three-pointer from James Harper, part of a stretch with three straight triples from the visitors that made it 30-20.

In the final two minutes of the first half the Knights went the opposite direction, feeding the ball inside, and it helped them chip away. Aaron Aikman, coming off a 21-point game of his own, got his own rebound and put in a layup and followed 30 seconds later with a rim-shaking dunk on the assist from Alexis Moore which made it 33-27 with 1:14 on the clock, but another three-pointer, this time from Kiran Shastri, made it 36-27, and that was the score heading into the break. In the first half, the Swords took 16 three-pointers, with six of the nine players who checked in taking at least one from beyond the arc.

Neither team scored for almost two minutes to start the second half, but when the scoring started, it was Lee Bailey who scored five straight points to put Chaminade up 44-30 with 14:22 on the clock. The Swords' leading scorer, the Knights were able to limit Bailey overall, holding him to only 11 points on 3-of-16 shooting for the game. As the second half continued, however, ART U clawed their way back into it. After the score by Bailey, ART U scored nine straight. Matt Cesca continued his current streak of good games and split free-throws, followed up by more from the charity stripe from Pratt, a layup from Aaron Anderson, and a big triple from Moore to make it 44-39 with 11:42 to play.

But that was the closest the Knights were able to get the rest of the way, as the Silverswords continued to fire away from beyond the arc every time Academy of Art made a run at the lead. They cut it to eight when Moore made a pair of free throws with 6:03 left, and although they would continue to make stops on defense, the Urban Knights just couldn't get over the final hurdle to overtake the second-place team in the PacWest.

Pratt's 20 points were a game-high and a career-high, as he also registered three rebounds, two assists, two steals, and a big block in 40 minutes. Moore had 13 points and six assists, while Aaron Anderson had six points, 10 rebounds, and four assists. Kevin Hu had 15 points to lead four Silverswords in double figures.

The Knights will play one more game at home this week, taking on BYU-Hawaii on Saturday afternoon, who dropped a close one to Notre Dame de Namur earlier tonight.