WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – The Lycoming College men's basketball team shook off two weeks of rust with a dominating performance in the opening round of the Louis Fleming Basinger Memorial Tournament on Monday night, Dec. 29, shooting 52 percent from the floor and scoring 22 fastbreak points en route to a 98-75 win over Penn State Brandywine at Lamade Gym.
 
The Warriors (6-4 overall) advance to their fifth straight Basinger Tournament final, where they will face Susquehanna in the championship game of the tournament at 3 p.m, as the Crusaders downed Rutgers-Camden, 82-63, in the other first round game. Penn State Brandywine will face Rutgers-Camden in the consolation game at 1 p.m.
 
Senior Patrick Dougher (Scotch Plains, N.J./Scotch Plains-Fanwood) led the Warriors with 17 points and three 3-pointers, scoring 14 in the first half, while sophomore Nykolas King (New York, N.Y./Manhattan Center for Science & Math) added 12 points and seven rebounds.
 
The Warriors played all 15 players on its roster, with all 15 finding the scoring column in the win, as Lycoming finished 42-of-79 from the floor and 8-of-18 (44 percent) from downtown, while also scoring a dominating 58 points in the paint.
 
All of that helped negate a singularly spectacular performance from Penn State Brandywine's James Fisher, who notched tournament records of 38 points and eight 3-pointers. The Lions (0-8 overall) also got 17 points from Marcus Turner, but the team was hampered by a 40 percent shooting percentage (27-of-68) and Lycoming's 51-35 advantage on the glass.
 
The Warriors started the game with a 12-5 run after a 3-pointer from King and expanded the lead to 23-9 by the midway point of the first half. A driving layup by Dougher with 8:04 left put Lycoming's lead in double figures for the rest of the game and Lycoming finished the half on a 30-9 run to take a 53-23 lead into the break.
 
In the second half, Lycoming expanded the lead to as many as 35, while a late run by the Lions cut the final margin down to 23 points.
 
Three Warriors finished with eight points – junior Eric Ishman (Queens, N.Y./Christ the King), senior Malcolm Covington (Springfield Gardens, N.Y./Blessed Sacrament) and freshman Chris Wallace (Bowie, md./DeMatha Catholic) – and three more added seven – freshmen Darius James (Brooklyn, N.Y./Bishop Loughlin), Issak Bodon (Brooklyn, N.Y./Bishop Loughlin) and Ryan Eck (Williamsport, Pa./Jersey Shore). Eck and King led the team with seven rebounds, while both freshman Chris Craft (Waldorf, Md./Westlake) and Covington posted five rebounds.
 
Freshman Casey Vickers (Terre Haute, Ind./Bridgton Academy) posted a career-high five assists and Covington, Craft and junior Armani Taylor (Upper Marlboro, Md./Bowie) posted three each.  
 
Cyrie Spencer notched nine points and nine rbeounds and Amir Davis posted six points and four assists for Penn State Brandywine.