LATROBE, Pa. (Nov. 8) – Four different players scored in double-figures as the Saint Vincent men's basketball team breezed to a 95-57 victory over Carlow in the 2023-24 season-opener at the Robert S. Carey Student Center.
 
The Bearcats (1-0) received a team-high 18 points from Jaden Gales and 15 from Mike Iuzzolino, while in their Saint Vincent debuts, Dev Ostrowski and Kison Coates-Edmonson each added 10 points apiece.
 
Along with scoring an impressive 95 points in the season-opener, Saint Vincent out-rebounded Carlow 46-30, while forcing 28 Carlow turnovers.
 
After Iuzzolino sank a three-pointer on his team's first possession of the season, the two teams would battle back and forth in the opening stages of the quarter, with the Bearcats holding a 13-10 lead five minutes into play. The hosts would then erupt, embarking on a 12-2 run over the game's next four minutes, capped off with a pair of Iuzzolino treys on back-to-back trips that opened up a 27-12 lead with just over 10 minutes left in the half.  
 
The Saint Vincent lead would continue to swell. A Gales steal and dunk with 8:07 left upped the score to 31-14, before four points from Iuzzolino, followed by a Tayler McNeal three, put the Bearcats up 40-20 with 4:39 left in the half. The SVC first half advantage eventually grew to 23 when an offensive put-back by Corey Harden made the score 49-26 with 1:17 left in the half, before SVC would take a 51-31 lead into the break.
 
The Bearcats continued to pull away over the opening minutes of the second half. Gales scored four points in a 40-second span to make it 56-31 with 18:35 left in the game, and after the reigning Presidents' Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year hit a three at the 16:30 mark, Osyon Jones sank a pair of free throws to push the lead to 31 points, 63-32, with 15:14 remaining.
 
The margin hovered between 25-30 points over the next several minutes, before the Bearcats ended the game with a flurry. With 4:51 left, Jordan Lucas-Johnson's bucket in the paint made it 84-54, before Coates-Edmonson netted all 10 of his points over the game's final 4:03 to close out the rousing SVC win.
 
Along with the four Bearcats who amassed at least 10 points, Harden, McNeal and Jaden Bailey each added eight points, while Lucas-Johnston scored seven on a 3-for-4 showing from the field. In all, 13 different Saint Vincent players found the scoresheet, as the Bearcats received 40 points from their bench.
 
Fifteen SVC players combined for the team's 46 rebounds, led by six apiece from Ostrowski and Gales, and five from Iuzzolino. McNeal and Ostrowski tied for the team high with three assists, while Jake DeMotte came off the bench to record a team-high three steals.
 
Saint Vincent outscored Carlow 48-26 in the paint, while SVC scored 32 points off of Carlow's 26 turnovers.
 
The Bearcats will continue their four-game, season-opening homestand on Saturday, Nov. 11, welcoming Penn State-Fayette to the Carey Center for a 7 p.m. tip.