Buffalo, NY-The D'Youville men's basketball team started strong by opening an early 10-point lead on unbeaten RIT but the Spartans would have two long scoring droughts, one in each half, and the visiting Tigers would leave the College Center Gym with 77-68 victory.

The Spartans led 22-12 just over 11 minutes into the contest but RIT would storm back to take the lead for good with an 11-2 run that saw the Spartan not score a point in over that six minute stretch.

Coming out of halftime down 42-36, the Spartans scored the first four points of the second frame on a Julian Reed (Cheektowaga, NY/Union-Endicott) jumper and a Jon Gemerek (Depew, NY/Depew) layup making it a two-point game. That was as close as the Spartans would get.

Another D'Youville push got the deficit to within seven with 10:20 to play but the Spartans went four minutes without scoring and wound up on the wrong end of a 15-2 that put the game out of reach.

Reed finished with a career-high 19 points to go with 9 rebounds and a game-high 3 blocked shots.  Gemerek chipped in 13 points and 11 points apiece came from Marcus Clarke (Olean, NY/Archbishop Walsh) and Corey Mis (North Tonawanda, NY/North Tonawanda).

The Spartans open the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference portion of the schedule on the road December 4 at Penn State Behrend. Tip-off in Erie, PA is at 6:00 p.m.