STEUBENVILLE, Ohio—The Franciscan University men's basketball team hung with no. 2 ranked conference opponent Pitt-Greensburg but struggled to maintain possession and narrow the gap in a 77-68 point loss.

While the Barons fell behind early thanks to two 3-point shots by the Bobcats and spent the rest of the half trying to catch up, several key plays by freshman guard Rich Cross kept them in the game. Cross scored 10 points in the first half, shooting 4-6 from the field and 2-2 from beyond the arc.

A nine-point halftime deficit was difficult to overcome, however, and although the Barons' matched them shot for shot, Greensburg finished the game with their original lead.

"A lot of it had to do with our turnovers," head coach John Lamanna said. "I would imagine points off of turnovers were very high, probably somewhere in the 20-plus range. The only way to be able to control the tempo is to rebound the ball and not turn the ball over."

Lamanna added that the team's 16 turnovers were partly due to the inexperience of a growing team.

"It's decision making turnovers," Lamanna said. "Though we try our absolute best to simulate the games in our practices, we don't have the length that Greensburg has. So in games we're trying to be able to make decisions about something that we don't consistently play against. The experience is coming. We have to continue to work and grow with it and try to improve"

Along with offensive challenges, the Baron defense struggled to stifle Greensburg's 50 percent field goal shooting but managed to hold the Bobcats to 77 points in comparison to their 89 point conference game average.

Lamanna said the difficulty is not allowing both issues to affect the game simultaneously.

"Basketball is a game of runs, but it's what type of runs you have," Lamanna said. "Tonight we had offensive droughts and turnovers combined with poor defense so our runs, instead of going back and forth between offense and defense, piggybacked."

Despite frustrations, performances from players like Cross, sophomore guard Jacob Divens, and freshman forward John-Paul Dombrowski boded well for the Barons' future.

Cross finished the night tied for leading scorer with a career high of 16 total points. The guard added three rebounds and was also an effective defensive force.

"Rich had a great game," Lamanna said. "He was sound, he was solid, and not just because he scored points. He was all over the place defensively and did a great job of guarding. It was nice to see him have a good game tonight."

Divens was the Barons' other leading scorer with 16 points that came primarily in the green and gold's desperate second-half situations. The point guard also contributed five assists.

With 12 of the Barons' 31 rebounds Dombrowski was an essential force down low, enabling the team to tie with Greensburg for boards.

"J.P. just rebounded his tail off. It was fantastic," Lamanna said. "What an incredible effort he had on the boards tonight. It was great."

Junior captain Christian Duke and freshman Keoni Sablan also contributed 10 and 11 points respectively and 5 and 3 rebounds. Lamanna said these performances indicate that the team is slowly but surely coming together.

"As I shared with the guys in the locker room after the game, we want to end the season better than we started," Lamanna said. "One of the charisms of Franciscan University is ongoing conversion and we use that within our basketball team as well asking ourselves, 'Are we constantly progressing?'"

He added that the team has to accept the growing process that accompanies their move toward success and that evidence of their improvement lies in the game's final result.

"Look at the first time we played Greensburg," Lamanna said of the team's 95-60 loss earlier in the season. "Some may say a loss is a loss but we don't look at the end result as the end-all, we look at it as a byproduct of what we're trying to achieve."

The Barons next face Penn St.-Behrend on the road at 4pm on Saturday, February 7 at 4pm.

"As much as we'd like, we can't force this process to happen immediately," Lamanna said. "I believe we will get there and I believe we will get there before the end of the season. The question is when."