Ace Bailey recorded 23 points and 10 rebounds, Dylan Harper scored 14 points and No. 24 Rutgers remained unbeaten thanks to a 74-63 win over visiting Merrimack on Wednesday in Piscataway, N.J.
Rutgers (4-0) didn’t lead by double digits until the second half, and the Scarlet Knights allowed Merrimack to pull within 65-58 with 2:53 to play after a 7-0 run.
Harper followed his own missed shot and made a putback dunk at the 2:29 mark, ending a three-minute, 13-second Rutgers scoring drought. He scored again on the next possession and Bailey drilled a 3-pointer to remove any chance of a final Merrimack rally.
Harper added eight rebounds and six assists. Fellow freshman Lathan Sommerville had nine points and Jordan Derkack, playing against his former team, tallied seven points, six rebounds and five assists.
Adam “Budd” Clark powered Merrimack (1-3) with 22 points and six assists. Sean Trumper added 10 points for the Warriors.
Merrimack committed 20 fouls and had two players foul out. The Scarlet Knights outscored the Warriors 17-7 at the foul line and 21-12 from the 3-point arc.
Early in the contest, Harper had a 3-pointer and set up Bailey for a thunderous one-handed dunk on back-to-back possessions, but Merrimack trimmed an eight-point deficit to 15-14 with 12:26 left in the first half.
The Scarlet Knights couldn’t grow their lead greater than five points until Merrimack hit a scoring drought lasting 5:38. The Warriors missed nine straight shots in that span.
Bailey’s tip-in dunk and Sommerville’s layup made it a nine-point game, but Clark operated from the midrange and beat the first-half buzzer to trim it to 37-30 Rutgers at intermission. Clark scored 14 of his points in the first half.
Bailey canned a 3-pointer on Rutgers’ first possession of the second half for the first 10-point lead of the night. Clark made three early layups to continuously cut Merrimack’s deficit to eight, but Rutgers had an answer each time.
After Bailey made two free throws, Jeremiah Williams deflected Merrimack’s inbounds pass off its intended target and out of bounds to win Rutgers an extra possession — which ended in an emphatic dunk by Emmanuel Ogbole that made it 50-38.
Tye Dorset’s fastbreak triple at the 5-minute mark prompted the 7-0 spurt that helped Merrimack get back in the game.
