Box Score WORCESTER – Ian Converse (Woodstock, CT) notched his third double-double and Chris Rodgers (Franklin, MA) tallied 16 of WPI's 21 bench points as nationally-ranked WPI upended visiting MIT 70-62 in a NEWMAC conference men's basketball game played Saturday afternoon in Harrington Auditorium.
WPI, ranked 12th in the most recent D3hoops.com Top 25, advances to 12-1 on the season, while winning its fifth straight, and remains unbeaten in conference action at 2-0. MIT, who is receiving votes in the D3hoops poll, saw its four-game winning streak snapped and drops to 9-3 overall and 1-1 in NEWMAC play.
The visiting Engineers looked good out of the gate, scoring the game's first five points and running out to a 9-5 advantage less than five minutes in. The host Engineers rattled off the game's next eight points to take a lead they would not relinquish. The spurt was highlighted by a traditional 3-point play by Sean Doncaster (Medford, MA), a 3-pointer from Clyde Niba (Atlanta, GA) and a short jumper via Converse. WPI built its bulge into double digits by using a 8-0 stretch in the waning seconds of the first half, including five points by Niba, to take a 42-31 lead into the locker room.
The home-standing Engineers pushed the advantage as high as 18 in the second half at 68-50 with 3:48 to go but MIT netted 12 of the game's last 14 points to bring the final margin to eight.
Converse registered a career-high-equaling 19 points and was one off his career-best rebounding total with 14, including eight offensive caroms. The junior canned 8-of-10 shots from the floor, including both of his 3-point bids. Rogers logged 30 minutes off the bench and the 16 points were his most since he recorded 18 in the season's game contest back in mid-November.
Niba reached double figures in scoring with 16 points as the hosts shot 49.1% from the floor for the game, including 55.2% over the opening 20 minutes. Doncaster finished with seven points and joined Rogers with three assists while Aaron Davis (Marshfield, MA) drained both of his trifecta attempts and swiped a pair of steals.
Bradley Jomard (Paris, France) totaled a game-best 21 points for MIT, including five from downtown. Justin Pedley (Kennewick, WA) and Adam Jurko (Weston, FL) amassed 12 and 11 points respectively. Lampros Tsontzos (Amarousion, Greece) led the visiting Engineers in rebounding with six while Jomard and Pedley each finished with five. Point guard Ryan Frankel (New York, NY) paced all players with four assists for Cambridge's Engineers.
WPI is off until Thursday when it hosts Smith at 7pm. Wheaton is back in action Tuesday when it heads to Mount Holyoke in the middle contest of a three-game road trip.
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