On Friday evening, the Alma College men's basketball team opened up the 2013-14 campaign with a road game at Allegheny College (PA) as part of the Greg Richards Memorial Tip-Off Classic weekend.

The home team Gators broke open a tightly contested affair over the last eight minutes of the game and came away with the 77-67 victory. The Scots are now 0-1 on the young season and will play John Carrol University (OH) tomorrow afternoon in their second game of the Classic.

"This is a tough one for me and I am interested in watching the film to have a better idea," said Alma Head Coach Sam Hargraves. "I look at the stats and I don't know how we were even in it. One obvious thing is we shot the ball poorly, and they didn't. We were tentative in the first half and the easy thing to do is shoot a three and we didn't make many. We got almost no post scoring and that has to change. I actually thought we defended better in the second half and took better shots, but the stats don't seem to show that.

"We're still going through growing pains. Tomorrow will be another great challenge against a totally different type of team."

From the opening tip, tonight's game had the look of two solid teams that were going to play well and close throughout the contest and the first 20 minutes did not disappoint, as the teams were deadlocked at 37-37 heading into halftime.

There were nine lead changes in the first frame as Alma's biggest lead was six points (29-23), while the Gators hit their high water mark at four points (10-6). Allegheny scored the final five points of the half to obtain the tie.

The second half was again close for most of the 20 minutes. The Gators took the lead 16 seconds into the frame but ultimately Alma was able to secure their own advantage at 56-51 at the 12:16 mark. The Scots continued to hold the lead at 62-60 with 8:10 remaining, but the game then took a turn for the worse for the road team.

Allegheny went on a 10-0 run over the next three minutes and led 70-62 at the 5:17 mark. Even though the Scots cut their deficit to five with 1:58 remaining, the Gators were not to be denied on this opening night. They ended up finishing the game on a 17-5 run over the last 8:10 and walked off the court with the hard-fought 77-67 victory.

As a team, Alma shot just 39% (25 of 64) from the field, including eight of 27 from beyond the three-point line. In addition, the Scots hit on just nine of 17 free throw attempts and were outrebounded by a margin of 37-30.

Individually, Sr. F Isiah Law (Grand Haven/Grand Haven) had 15 points, seven rebounds and three assists in 30 minutes, while So. G Scott Nikodemski (Rockford/Rockford) finished with 15 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Additionally, So. F DJ Beckman (Shelby/Shelby) played in a team-high 34 minutes and added 11 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals. Off the bench, Sr. F Kyle Aho (Gwinn/Gwinn) played 21 minutes and contributed four points, two rebounds, one assist and two steals.

Tomorrow's contest against John Carroll is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m.