Cooper's big day pushes men's basketball past CMU, 81-67

WALTHAM, Mass. – The Brandeis University men's basketball was led by sophomore Jordan Cooper (Weston, Fla./Sagemont School), who scored a career-high 35 points, as the Judges defeated visiting Carnegie Mellon University, 81-67, in a University Athletic Association (UAA) contest in Red Auerbach Arena today.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• The first half featured two ties and seven lead changes, all in the first half.
• CMU opened up an early five-point lead, but the Judges stayed close, and were within one at 22-21 on a Cooper bucket at the 5:38 mark.
• The Tartans built their biggest lead of the game on a three-point play by Jack Serbin and a 3-pointer by James Ormond that made it 28-21 just 1:02 later.
• Brandeis scored six in a row of their own, four by junior Tim Reale (Mason, Ohio/St. Andrews School, R.I.), including a steal and lay-up that got it back within 28-27.
• After Carnegie Mellon's Ryan Maha and Brandeis's Carlin Haymon (Boston, Mass./Rivers School) traded 3-pointers, Serbin hit four foul shots in a row to put CMU ahead, 35-30 with 1:38 before the break.
• Cooper answered with a lay-up and two freebies before Haymon connected on a jumper from the elbow with five seconds left to give Brandeis a 36-35 lead at the break.
• Brandeis opened the second half with an 11-2 run over the first four minutes and the Judges never looked back.
• They hit seven of their first eight shots after the break and 14 of their first 16 to build a 23-point lead at 72-49 with 6:49 to go.
• CMU was able to get a big chunk of it back on their next possession, when a skirmish on a tied-up rebound led to a slew of technical fouls. The Tartans ended up with six foul shots – converting five – and then hit a 3-pointer on their ensuing possession to get the deficit quickly down to 15.
• Brandeis was able to keep the lead in double figures the rest of the way en route to a split of the UAA weekend.

JORDAN COOPER'S BIG DAY

• Cooper's game- and career-high 35 points came on 11-of-18 from the field, 3-of-7 from downtown and 10-of-12 from the line.
• He scored 15 in the first half (5-10 FG, 1-3 3FG, 4-6 FT) and 20 in the second (6-8 FG, 2-4 3FG, 6-6 FT).
• The 35 points eclipsed his previous career-best of 28, set on Jan. 6, 2015, at Bates College.
• It was Brandeis's first 30-point performance since January 26, 2014 by Gabriel Moton '14, and the most points scored by a Judge since Vytas Kriskus '12 scored 35 against Curry on November 20, 2010.

THE REST OF THE JUDGES

• Junior Robinson Vilmont (Cambridge, Mass./Wilbraham and Monson) added 12 points and a team-high three assists.
• Junior center John Powell (Ashland, Mass./Brimmer and May School) had a team-high seven rebounds in just 14 minutes.
• Brandeis shot a season-high 57.7% (30-52), thanks to a torrid second half, when they hit 77.3%, missing just five shots from the floor (17-22).

FOR CARNEGIE MELLON

• The Tartans were led by a double-double performance from Serbin, who scored 19 points and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.
• Patrick Ehland had 15 points off the bench and James Ormond added 11 points in 20 minutes in reserve.
• Ehland also had eight rebounds – six on the offensive glass.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• Brandeis won the turnover battle, 17-10, and outscored the Tartans, 21-4, in points off those miscues.
• CMU turned 15 offensive rebounds into 21 second-chance points.

TEAM RECORDS

• Brandeis evens their record at 9-9 and improves to 3-4 in the UAA, in fifth place at the midway point of the conference season.
• The win was the 198^th at Brandeis for head coach Brian Meehan, second on the Judges' career list behind Bob Brannum's 204 wins.
• CMU falls to 8-10, 1-6 in the UAA, in eighth place in the league.

UP NEXT

• Brandeis and Carnegie Mellon will meet a week from today in Pittsburgh. The teams will face Case Western Reserve and NYU, respectively, in UAA play on Friday night.

For more information on Brandeis Athletics, please visit brandeisjudges.com or follow us on Twitter or Instagram @brandeisjudges, or follow us on Facebook.

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