San Francisco  -- Despite holding a nine point lead in the first half, Academy of Art University men's basketball could not hold on and fell to Notre Dame de Namur University 72-49. Freshman point guard Marqus Crawford had a team-high 13 points to go with two rebounds, two assists and two steals. Freshman forward Hunter Hayden added 12 points and four rebounds, but the Urban Knights were out-rebounded 39-22 and had a rough shooting night as well.

AAU came out hot on a 12-3 run in which each starter scored. The lead held strong until the 8:53 minute mark when a three-pointer by the Argonauts' Bennie Murray cut the advantage for four points. Soon after, Dan Bergeron hit a trey of his own and the visitors eventually took their own lead on two more back-to-back threes by that pair of NDNU players.

Going into halftime, Notre Dame de Namur were up 38-23 with 14 of those 38 points coming in the paint. Five minutes into the second period, the Argonauts had grown their lead to 20 points and continued to surge. Academy of Art University experienced nearly a three-minute scoring drought, but then broke out of it with an 8-2 burst midway through the half. NDNU responded and pushed their advantage back up to 27 points with 3:01 to play and AAU was unable to recover.

In addition to the contributions from Crawford and Hayden, sophomore guard Phillip Samuel had 11 points, four rebounds and four steals in the game. Sophomore point guard Weleh Dennis struggled offensively, but got his teammates involved with a team-high four assists to go with three rebounds. Freshman forward Lorenzo Dobson pulled a team-high eight rebounds and scored five points.

Notre Dame de Namur University received 18 points and eight rebounds from both Bergeron and Deon Sharps. Murray achieved the game's only double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds for a team that shot 48.2% from the field compared to 32.1% for the Knights.

These two Pacific West Conference rivals had met previously in an overtime contest that resulted in a 74-69 victory for NDNU. The Argonauts record improves to 6-19 on the year.

With the loss, Academy of Art University finishes its historic season with a 4-22 overall record.