Box Score
ELIZABETH CITY, NC – The Livingstone men's basketball team fell 62-60 in its conference opener Thursday after a furious comeback fell short on the road at Elizabeth City State University.
The Blue Bears (4-3, 0-1) trailed by 10 points with 7:38 to play in the second half, but went on a 14-3 run and Tyler Johnson gave Livingstone a 57-56 lead with 3:24 left as he hit a jumper and converted the free throw after the foul.
Elizabeth City (7-2, 1-0) tied the game at 57-57 with 2:02 left, but Nasir Austin gave the Blue Bears the lead back at 58-57 with 1:15 remaining. With 49 seconds left the Vikings took the lead back before Darius Cox hit a runner in the lane to regain a 60-59 edge with 33 seconds left. With 20 seconds left, the Vikings hit two free throws to go up 61-60.
Livingstone brought the ball down and Austin was fouled with four seconds left, but missed both free-throw attempts. Elizabeth City rebounded the ball and was fouled with 1.8 seconds left. After hitting the second of two free throws the Blue Bears had a chance. Out of a timeout, after getting the ball to midcourt, the Blue Bears had a set play, but couldn't get a shot off before the buzzer, falling 62-60.
Elizabeth City came out shooting the three-pointer with some consistency. After a Donte Durant made jumper that had Livingstone trailing 3-2 with 18:53 left, the Vikings went on a 13-4 run over the next 7:25 to open up a 16-6 advantage with 11:28 left in the first half.
Livingstone responded in a big way to the Viking run with a 15-3 run of their own. To end the run Marvin Adams converted two free throws with 4:21 left in the half to give the Blue Bears their first lead of the game at 21-19. Over the final 2:30 of the opening stanza, the Vikings rattled off a 9-0 run, capped off by a buzzer-beating three-pointer to take a 28-21 lead into the break.
Livingstone came out strong in the second half, going on an 8-0 run in the first three minutes of the second half to tie the game at 28-28. With 13:04 left, the Blue Bears led 36-35, but the Vikings quickly battled back to grab a 42-37 edge with 11:49 on the clock. Elizabeth City slowly built their 10-point edge with 7:38 left before the Livingstone comeback.
Donte Durant led three Blue Bears in double-figure scoring with 14 points while Greg Henry scored 12 and Nasir Austin, 11. Darius Cox led the Blue Bears with eight rebounds. Rondy Tucker for the Vikings finished with a double-double off the bench with 13 points and 14 rebounds.
The Blue Bears shot 40 percent from the field for the game including 33.3 percent from beyond the arc, but struggled at the free-throw line, hitting only 20 of their 34 attempts. Elizabeth City hit 40 percent of its shots from the field and from beyond the three-point arc and also struggled at the charity stripe connecting only 44.4 percent of its attempts.
The Livingstone men will head home for a CIAA contest on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against the Lincoln University Lions.
