Box Score


San Rafael, CA -- Just like the game last week at Kezar Pavilion, the Academy of Art University men's basketball team met with Dominican University in the regular season finale in a game fitting the hype. The game was neck-and-neck down the stretch and the Urban Knights had a chance to win in regulation as well as a chance to tie at the end of overtime, but in the second one-possession game in a week, the Knights fell to the Penguins by a final score of 80-78. With Chaminade's overtime 88-82 loss to Hawai'i Pacific the Urban Knights' postseason hopes were dashed as HPU overtook the sixth spot in the standings.

For the third game in a row, the Urban Knights won the tip and made the first shot of the game, this time a 3-pointer in the corner by Ivan "B.J." Prema, Jr. to give ART U the early lead. The game seesawed back and forth in the first half, with the Knights taking a four point lead on a layup from Ameer Shamsud-din to make it 23-19 with 8:59 left. But Dominican closed the half strong, pushing a lead to six with just under two minutes left before the Knights made back-to-back buckets to make it a two-point game at halftime.

Coming out of the break, the Penguins pushed it to their biggest lead of the game with  9:56 to play, as a free throw by Jammall Clark made it 56-47. But the Knights closed the gap after that, eventually re-taking the lead at 59-58 on a layup inside by Aaron Anderson. The game teetered in the balance again down the stretch, with both teams making free throws and making them, but with under a minute to play, Alex Carmon would make a tricky layup to tie the game at 72-72. The Knights had one more chance with time running down for the win, but Carmon's runner from the baseline was off the mark, and the game went to overtime.

In the extra period, the score stayed tight until the final buzzer. Two free throws from Dominique Taplin gave Dominican a 79-76 lead, but Carmon scored his second bucket of the extra period to make it a one point game with 1:17 to play. After Taplin split a pair of free throws, the Urban Knights called timeout with 25 seconds left to figure out their strategy to try and tie or win. ART U got it in the hands of Bryan Fisher on a mismatch, but his last second dish to Anderson led to a shot as time expired that rimmed out and the Knights fell to the Penguins by a single possession for the second time this year.

Academy of Art finishes the year with their most wins in program history, and came up just short of making the inaugural PacWest Tournament. Shamsud-din led the Knights with 17 points and six rebounds in his final contest, while seniors Prema and Mike Jorristma also played in their final games. Fisher and Carmon had sixteen points apiece, while Fisher added seven assists to tie for the most assists in a single season (109). Aaron Anderson also had 14 points for the Urban Knights.