LEXINGTON, Va. – The TCNJ men's basketball team continued an unforgiving recent slate with an 84-62 loss to No. 20 Mary Washington Thursday afternoon at the Washington and Lee Holiday Tournament.

Danny Bodine, Anthony DiCaro, and Pat Higgins scored 10 points apiece to lead TCNJ, which also got nine from Nick Koch and six apiece from Jim Clemente and Matthew Okorie.

Thursday's contest marked the second in a row against a ranked squad for the Lions, who have played five of their last seven games against a team that was at least receiving votes in the D3hoops.com national poll. TCNJ opens 2023 at home against No. 23 Stockton, with return dates against Kean and Montclair State – both currently receiving votes – still to come.

A sluggish first half was too much to overcome for the Lions, who struggled with turnovers and managed just seven points in the game's first 10 minutes – after which they found themselves down by 13. The Eagles (10-2) pushed the margin out to 29-10 a few minutes later, and despite TCNJ's efforts were able to get well over the 20-point hump with a 7-0 run to close the half and go into the break with a 46-23 lead.

Mary Washington proceeded to score the first five points of the second half and eventually went ahead by as many as 29 points (58-29) just shy of the 15-minute mark.

TCNJ, however, refused to lie down. The Lions were excellent offensively in the second stanza, shooting 60.0 percent from the field (15-of-25) and making half of their eight 3-point tries. They got the lead under 20 several times in the last 10 minutes of the contest, including on a corner trey by Koch to make it 62-43 at the 9:41 mark.

Koch set up a big highlight-reel play a few possessions later, breaking down his defender before lofting a perfect alley-oop pass to a cutting Bodine, who threw down a ferocious jam.

DiCaro's four-point play trimmed the margin to 77-59, and a jumper by Koch made it 79-62 with just over three minutes to play before Mary Washington expanded the final spread to 22.

Koch turned in his second impressive performance in a row, nearly matching his previous season high of 10 points from last week against 7^th-ranked Christopher Newport. The rookie was 4-of-6 in that contest and went 4-for-5 in this one.

Higgins and DiCaro each had three rebounds and three assists for the Lions.

Greg Rowson (22 points) and Zack Blue (21) led the way for the Eagles, who shot 51.0 percent from the field (26-of-51) and committed just six turnovers, five of them in the second half. Mary Washington converted 17 TCNJ turnovers into 24 points on the other end.

The Lions wrap up 2022 with a matchup against Vassar in the tournament's consolation game. Tip is set for 2 p.m.