Head coach Tom Moore and his men’s basketball team did something tonight that they haven’t done in nearly four years. For the first time since Jan. 29, 2009, against Mount St. Mary’s, the Bobcats failed to score at least 50 points as they fell to Vermont by the final score of 53-46.

[media-credit id=1459 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]In the game against Mount St. Mary’s, the team fell 60-42, as Justin Rutty and James Feldeine combined to score 23 of the 42 points from the Bobcats.

Tonight, the Bobcats had one of their worst halves in the history of the program scoring just 16 points in the first 20 minutes.

“Disappointing offensive performance to say the least,” Moore said. “I thought it negated a pretty good defensive performance.”

Senior guard Garvey Young and junior forward Ike Azotam were the only Bobcats able to hit shots in the first 16 minutes, keeping them in the game. They sank the first 13 points for the Bobcats before freshman Kendrick Ray drained the only 3-pointer of the game for the Bobcats. Young and Azotam combined to hit 6-of-15 shots in the first half while the rest of the lineup was just 1-for-13.

Quinnipiac (3-5) finished the game shooting an abysmal 32.1 percent and 11.1 percent from behind the arc hitting only two shots altogether from outside the paint. Vermont (5-3) wasn’t much better, which kept the Bobcats in the game. They shot 37.5 percent in the game but hit 5-of-15 from 3-point range.

Quinnipiac came into the game hitting 67.7 percent of their its shots and it looked like that was going to play a large factor as it entered the double-bonus with 6:47 remaining and a four point deficit. The Bobcats attempted seven free throws during the final 6:47 and hit five of them. However, they hit just six of their first 13 to finish the game at 55 percent.

The Bobcats have three games remaining before they enter their Northeast Conference schedule with all three games coming against American East opponents. They travel to Boston University next on Sunday Dec. 16.

“Hopefully we can’t play worse offensively than we did today,” Moore said.

Azotam finished with 13 points and nine rebounds but had to sit late in the second half with four fouls. Young picked up a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Ousmane Drame added nine points off the bench as well as four blocks but had a team-high three turnovers.

Quinnipiac was better in the turnover margin, turning it over 14 times to 15 for the Catamounts. However the 14 turnovers resulted in 20 points for Vermont compared to just five for Quinnipiac.

The Bobcats lowest points scored since tonight’s game came Nov. 10, 2006, in their first game of the year against UConn. That was with Moore’s predecessor, Joe DeSantis, and the team fell by the same score 53-46. That UConn team however featured several players who would go on to play in the NBA including the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 7-foot-3-inch Hasheem Thabeet.