EWING, N.J. – The TCNJ men's basketball team let visiting Ursinus back in the game after building a big first-half lead. The Lions weren't so forgiving in the second half.
Justin Carbone drove the streaking Lions to an early cushion and Anthony DiCaro caught fire late to put the Bears away as the hosts ran away with a 79-63 victory, their third in a row.

Carbone netted a career-high 20 points – 14 of them in the first frame – and got plenty of support from DiCaro (16 points) and Jim Clemente (13) to push TCNJ to its 15^th consecutive regular-season home win.

The Lions (3-1) dominated in every area of the court, controlling sizeable advantages on the glass (47-33) and in points off turnovers (14-6) while making 10 triples and holding the potent Bears to just 39.0 percent from the field and 25.9 percent from 3-point range (7-of-27).

TCNJ corralled 12 offensive rebounds and limited Ursinus to only two offensive boards, leading to an 11-2 advantage in second-chance points.

The Lions' penchant for long-range marksmanship elevated them to a comfortable lead for much of the first half. After misfiring on its first five 3-point attempts, TCNJ connected on six of its next seven, a surge ignited by back-to-back triples from Carbone, the second off an inbounds pass in the corner to make it 18-11.

After a Bears bucket, Trevor Covey decided to fire one up from deep on the right wing and buried it, and Danny Bodine followed a Naysean Burch triple with a trailing transition trey of his own to establish the Lions' first double-digit lead of the night at 27-17 with 9:15 to play in the opening half.

The advantage swelled to as many as a dozen points when Carbone capped a personal run of eight consecutive points for the Lions, pulling up from long range on the right side and tickling the twine to give the hosts a 39-27 upper hand with 2:01 to go. Ursinus, however, closed the half on a 7-0 run to slice the margin down to five at the break. That was as close as the Bears would get.

Another 3 from the trailing Bodine made it 52-40 with 14:37 to go, and the lead never dipped below double digits from there. After an Ursinus basket, DiCaro kick-started a game-clinching 10-0 run with a step-back 3 after a vicious set of moves, and capped the burst with another try that made it 62-42 at the midway point of the period.

The lead grew as large as 21 (67-46) on Clemente's lay-up off a pocket pass from DiCaro with 7:29 to go, and the Lions were never threatened the rest of the way.

Carbone was sensational in the first half, piling up 14 points on 5-of-7 from the field (3-for-4 from 3-point range) and collecting five rebounds.

DiCaro missed his first six from 3-point range but finished with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting and added six assists and five rebounds.

Clemente was terrific, putting up a career-high 13 points on 6-for-9 from the floor and chipping in seven rebounds and four assists as a distributor. Carbone led the Lions with eight rebounds, while Bodine paired nine points with seven boards.

The Lions have the weekend off before welcoming Rowan to Packer Hall for the NJAC opener next Tuesday.