READING, Pa. – The Albright Lions men's basketball team was unable to overcome turnovers as they dropped an 82-65 decision to Hood on Wednesday night in MAC Commonwealth play at the Bollman Center.
 
With the loss, the Lions fall to 5-16 overall and 4-9 in MAC Commonwealth play. Meanwhile, the Blazers improve to 15-7 overall and 9-4 in conference play.
 
Sophomore Sidney Brown registered a game-high 20 points behind a career-best six three-pointers. Classmate Samuel Majekodunmi added 15 points with 13 of them coming in the second half plus two steals. Senior Jared Rappoport led the Lions with seven rebounds, while posting four points and two blocks. Sophomores Christian Lane and Troy Smoot each led the Lions with four assists.
 
Majekodunmi opened the game with the Lions first five points to put them up 5-0 at the 18:07-mark before the Blazers went on a 13-3 run to take a 13-8 lead at the 14:05-mark. Hood then went up 18-11, but the Lions tallied seven-straight points to cut the deficit down to 18-17 at the 9:05-mark. The Blazers responded with a 13-2 run to go up 31-19 with 4:11 left in the first half, and the Lions went on a drought of 6:13 without a field goal. A three-pointer with four seconds left in the first half from Brown made it a 39-29 contest at halftime.
 
The Blazers came out of halftime with four-straight points off a pair of Lion turnovers in the first 1:11 of the second half to go up 43-29, and force an Albright timeout. A balanced scoring attack from the Blazers kept the advantage at double-digits until Brown again hit a three-pointer to make it a 47-38 game at the 15:10-mark. Hood then went up 55-38 following six-straight points until Albright countered with five-straight points to make it a 55-43 deficit at the 12:13-mark. Hood continued to use a balanced scoring attack to keep the lead up in double-digits in the second half. The Lions got as close at 15 points the rest of the way in the second half at the 6:58-mark.
 
The Lions shot 36.5 percent (23-of-63) from the field overall and went 12-of-38 (31.6%) from beyond the arc. Albright went a solid 7-of-8 (87.5%) from the free throw line and held a slight 33-32 rebounding advantage. However, the Lions had 20 turnovers that led to 20 Blazer points. Meanwhile, Hood shot 52.8 percent (28-of-53) from the field after shooting 58.6 percent in the second half. The Blazers went 43.5 percent (10-of-23) from three-point range and 16-of-24 (66.7%) from the free throw line. Hood also got 31 points from its bench.
 
Mason Wang and Jared Ruiz led the Blazers with 16 points as Ruiz came off the bench. Wang also added six assists, five rebounds, and three steals in the win. Ruiz posted a team-high four steals, and Kobe Butler added 14 points as well.
 
Albright will return to action on Saturday, February 9th as they will travel to face Messiah at 4 p.m.