Men's Basketball Rolls to 90-60 MASCAC Win Over Framingham State

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- The Bridgewater State University men's basketball team closed out a productive January with a road win.

The Bears swept the season series from Framingham State University, posting a 90-60 victory on Wednesday night at Logan Gymnasium.

BSU, which went 6-2 in January, is now 10-10 overall. The Bears remain in a second-place tie in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference with four games to go.

At 6-2 in the conference, BSU is one-half game behind Worcester State (6-1) and even with Westfield State.

The Bears went on a 19-6 run to close out the first half and were never in trouble after that. The 30-point victory was their largest of the season, and BSU reached 90 points for the sixth time.

Precious Okoh (Brockton, Mass.) made 9 of 13 shots, going 5-for-8 on 3-pointers, to score 23 points and had four assists for the Bears.

Josh Campbell (Plymouth, Mass.) scored 15 points on 7-for-8 shooting and grabbed five rebounds. Also in double figures were Justin Parsons (Portsmouth, R.I.) with 11 points and Emerson Halbleib (Carmel, Ind.) with 10 points plus seven rebounds and five assists.

BSU shot 57 percent, hitting 37 of 65 shots, and made 10 of 22 shots from 3-point range. The Bears also had a 48-34 edge in rebounds and limited the Rams to 29 percent shooting (21-for-72).

JD Okafor (Boston, Mass.) had 16 points for Framingham State while Kyle Philistin (North Plainfield, N.J.) had 12 and Duane Mason Jr. (Oxon Hill, Md.) had 10 points and six rebounds.

BSU held a 19-15 advantage with 8:16 left in the opening half after Framingham State had gone on an 11-2 run over a span of more than five minutes.

But the Bears took control by outscoring the Rams, 19-6, in the final 6:19 of the half for a 38-21 lead at the break.

Framingham State missed its final 10 shots of the half. The Rams managed just back-to-back 3-pointers the rest of the half after cutting he deficit to 19-15.

BSU held Framingham State to 21 percent shooting in the half (7-for-34), including 3-for-13 from 3-point range.

The Bears opened the game on a 7-0 run with Okoh scoring five of the points, and the lead went to 17-4 with less than six minutes gone.

But the Rams cut the margin to four, limiting the Bears at the offensive end.

Five different players then scored for BSU in the 19-6 run to end the half. Parsons had seven of the points while Taylor and Halbleib added four. Campbell and Nicolas Bontemps (Coral Springs, Fla.) also scored for the Bears.

BSU was 17-for-34 from the floor in the half and turned the ball over just four times.

The Bears opened their first 20-point lead at 51-31 with 15:35 remaining on a 3-pointer by Okoh, and his 3-pointers gave BSU leads of 62-36 and 72-43.

The biggest lead was 33 for BSU, which defeated the Rams, 109-86, earlier this month at home. The Bears hold an 80-39 series lead over Framingham State in a matchup that began in 1971.

BSU travels to the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts for a 2 p.m. game Saturday. Framingham State (5-16, 0-8 in the MASCAC) is at Salem State on Saturday afternoon.