MIT wins season opener
Men’s basketball beats Curry College, 71-66
It looked like the Engineers had brought sticky rice on the road last Tuesday when they devoured Curry College in their season opener. Ranked 10th in Division III basketball, the men’s basketball team had more than one star, with both Noel Hollingsworth ’12 and William Tashman ’13 recording double-doubles in the game — Hollingsworth, a Division I transfer from Brown University after his freshman year and one of the top players in the league, scored a whopping 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, 8 of which were offensive. Tashman’s fingers were sticky during the game, snagging the ball from the opposition 3 times and grabbing the ball off the board 10 times. James D. Karraker ’12 looked like Kyle Korver of the Chicago Bulls, scoring 6 of 11 from downtown.
The Engineers combined for an impressive total of 43 rebounds, diminishing the Curry Colonels’ 28. Though the final score of 71-66 was close, the game wasn’t. MIT’s team ousted Curry’s overall game in every category, with a higher free throw percentage, more offensive and defensive rebounds, shot attempts, assists, steals, and blocks, and less turnovers and personal fouls. The Colonels were only able to keep up with the superior Engineers by keeping a slightly higher field goal percentage than the Engineers. Their team wasn’t as deep — only three of their players scored over 3 points in the game versus the Engineers’ five, William E. Bender ’12, Mitchell H. Kates ’13, and the aforementioned Hollingsworth, Tashman, and Karraker.
Even with their solid performance against the Colonels, the Engineers had found themselves playing catch-up much of the first half. The Colonels took an early lead with a gap as big as 22–17 at one point. MIT then pulled together its efforts, wanting to close up the gap. In less than four minutes, the Engineers went on an 11–2 run, turning the table on Curry. Curry played hard the rest of the first half, ending it in a tie.
The second half was a different story; the Engineers showed Curry why they were ranked 10 preseason, leading the half with a 23–9 run. Toward the end of the half, Curry had narrowed the game to an Engineer’s lead of 4, a score of 64–60, with a 3-point jump shot by Colonels player Sedale Jones. However, the Engineers ultimately did not allow Curry to come back with their intentional foul strategy — Bender made the last 4 free throws of the game to seal the end result.
An all-out team effort by the Engineers starts out their season perfectly on road; this is the team’s fourth consecutive season-opening win.