Staten Island, NY  |  The College of Staten Island Men's Basketball Team made it back-to-back wins on their home floor with a 75-57 victory over the Wildcats of Johnson & Wales University.  Behind an 18-35 shooting performance from beyond-the-arc led by 20 points from both Rigaud Destime and Adeola Latunji, the Dolphins ran away with the game late in the second half.  The win improved the Dolphins to 2-3 on the season and snapped the Wildcats winning streak at three to send them to 3-2.

The two teams went back-and-forth in the first half exchanging the lead several times during the opening minutes.  Latunji opened the scoring for CSI with two of his team-leading 20 on the first CSI possession, but Justin Bullock quickly responded with one of his six three-pointers.  These two players were the focal point for their teams offensively early one with each registering double-digit points prior to the halftime break.

Bullock's second make from long-range made it 6-2 Wildcats before Austin Mick cut the JWU lead to one with another three of his own.  This shot-making from the outside set the tone in a first half which saw the two teams combine to shoot 13-29 from downtown.  Mick would add another three less than two minutes later, the second of four straight CSI field-goals that came from beyond the arc.  The pair of threes by Mick was followed by another from Chris Velasquez and one more from Andrew Kartalis to put CSI up three.

After an Aireus Raspberry three for JWU evened the score at 15 and a Brian Hogan-Gary free throw put the Wildcats up one, CSI went on a 17-0 scoring run that spanned the next 7:11 and saw them take a commanding 32-16 lead.  The run was highlighted by one of Rigaud Destime's six three-pointers, a Latunji two-handed slam, and Mick's third three-pointer of the half.

His team now trailing by sixteen, the run was finally put to an end by a Bullock three, his third of the half, to make it 32-19.  That got a 14-0 Wildcats run started that wasn't snapped until the final second of the half by a buzzer-beating Destime three-pointer.  That made it 35-30 Dolphins entering the intermission following a first half that saw CSI shoot 46.4% from the floor and 47.1% from beyond the arc.  JWU only shot 36.4% but dominated on the glass, 25-13.

When the second half got underway, the Wildcats wasted no time getting even as they quickly knotted up the score at 35 just 45 seconds into half number two.  The Dolphins then took the lead back on another three by Destime and extended that lead two six on the fourth make from downtown by Mick.  The Wildcats would quickly pull back to within two, but Kartalis connected from long-range again to put CSI back up five.

The make by Kartalis was the first in a 7-0 Dolphins run to put them ahead by nine, and after five straight points for JWU, Velasquez continued to make an impact off of the bench with another three-pointer.  Just over two minutes later he would connect again from deep to extend the Dolphins lead to twelve.

CSI's lead would reach fourteen before the Wildcats scored again with 7:10 to play, their first basket in over seven and a half minutes.  This cut the lead to eleven but Destime would immediately put some more distance between his team and JWU with consecutive three-pointers.  This gave the Dolphins what would prove to be an insurmountable seventeen-point lead and they cruised to the 75-57 win.

Destime and Latunji led the way for CSI offensively with 20 points each and Destime connected on six of his ten attempts from three-point range.  Mick was 4-6 from downtown and finished with 12 while Velasquez had nine on a trio of three-pointers off the bench.  Bullock's hot shooting early on kept his team close, but he cooled off in the second half and finished the game 7-16 with a team-leading 22 points.  Hogan-Gary registered a double-double with 15 points and 14 rebounds while Danny Ampofo added twelve points on four made threes and Bryan Davis contributed another 12 rebounds.

The Dolphins will have a week off before they host fellow East Coast Conference member St. Thomas Aquinas.  Tip-off from The Tank will be at 1 PM.

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