INDIANA, Pa. (Jan. 2) – The Thiel College men's basketball team dropped a road non-conference tilt with Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania 93-58 Thursday evening at Kovalchick Convention & Athletic Complex.

The Tomcats drop to 5-6 on the year while the Crimson Hawks rise to 7-6.
 
The Blue and Gold came out of the gates strong and led 5-0 within the first 3 minutes to force an early Crimson Hawks timeout as Rob Thomas (Pittsburgh, Pa./Penn Hills) had a layup and Mike Brown (Clinton, Md./Gwynn Park) connected on a 3-pointer. The home side responded with a 6-0 spurt, but a Marlon Ellerbee (Temple Hills, Md./Oxon Hill) 3-ball gave Thiel an 8-6 edge at the 15:02 mark of the opening half. IUP responded with an 11-0 run to pull ahead by 9 as the home side never trailed for the remainder of the contest.

Brown tied his season-best with 15 points on 4-of-7 shooting, 3-of-5 from deep and 4-of-4 at the free-throw line. He pulled down a pair of boards and had one steal.
 
Ellerbee pitched in 11 points on 4-of-11 from the field and 2-of-2 at the line. He corralled a team-leading seven boards and dished out one assist. Thomas added 11 points as well on 5-of-12 to go with three boards and a team-high two blocks.
 
Brown connected on a buzzer beater from deep to end the first half and cut IUP's lead to 43-32. After an IUP dunk on the opening possession of the second half, Brown canned another 3-ball to make it 45-35. The Crimson Hawks logged an 11-4 spurt over the next 5:34 to grow their lead to 56-39.

John Morgan (Indianapolis, Ind./Lebanon) posted 7 points on 3-of-9 from the field and 1-of-4 from 3-point range to go with four boards in 17 minutes of action off the bench. Anthony Henderson II (Miramar, Fla./Somerset Academy) made his first collegiate start and contributed 7 points, 5 of which came at the charity stripe (5-of-6), and collected five boards to go with a team-leading two assists. 

The Tomcats went 15-of-19 (78.9 percent) from the free-throw line while the Crimson Hawks went 17-of-27 (63 percent). Thiel won the battle on the offensive glass with 17 boards compared to IUP's 11. 

Men's basketball returns to action Saturday when they host rival Grove City College at 3 p.m. in a Presidents' Athletic Conference tilt.