Saratoga Springs, NY... The College of New Jersey men's basketball team was unable to overcome the hot shooting of Skidmore College as they fell 96-84 in a non-conference game Monday night.

Edvinas Rupkus paced the Thoroughbreds (4-1) with 37 points and eight rebounds on 11-14 shooting. The Lions (3-2) struggled all night to slow down the Skidmore offensive attack allowing the Thoroughbreds to shoot 64.0% (32-50) from the field.

TCNJ countered with two twenty point scorers of their own with Bobby Brackett (Lawrenceville, NJ / Lawrence) leading the Lions with his second "double-double" of the season compiling 25 points and 12 boards and Corey Stanford (Pittsburgh, PA / Penn Trafford) chipping in 24 points of his own. With those 12 rebounds Brackett passed Bill Burr to move into fourth on the Lions All-time career rebounding list.

With the Lions down 6-2, TCNJ went on a quick 5-0 run capped by a Kevin Johnson (Belle Mead, NJ / Montgomery) 3-pointer to grab an early 7-6 lead.

The lead changed hands several times until with the Lions leading 16-15, the Thoroughbreds used a 12-2 run including the ninth and final lead change of the game to pull ahead 27-18. Aldin Medunjanin, who led the run with five points and an assist, finished the game with 17 points and eight assists. Skidmore entered the break with a 43-35 lead.

TCNJ used back to back 3-pointers from Jordan Glover (Lawrenceville, NJ / Lawrence) to cut the lead to eight at 79-71, but were unable to get any closer as Skidmore immediately countered with a 6-0 run of their own to put the game out of reach. Glover finished with nine points.

Eric Murdock, Jr. (Bridgewater, NJ / Bridgewater) finished in double figures for the Lions scoring 12 points in addition to dishing out seven assists.

The Lions now travel to Galloway, NJ to take on Stockton University in a re-match of last season's NJAC Championship game Wednesday at 8:00 pm. The teams split the regular season match-ups, with both teams winning on the others home court before the Ospreys took the rubber match and their third consecutive NJAC Tournament championship 60-53.