NEW YORK, NY - The Hunter College men's basketball team was defeated by Rutgers-Newark, 86-75 at the Hunter Sportsplex on Tuesday evening.

Jeffrey Daza led the way for the Hawks with 24 points and six assists, while John Akinyemi added 14 points, and Lorenzo Brown had 10. The Hawks shot 50 percent for the game (30-59), including 42 percent from behind the three-point arc (9-21).

Hunter (4-5) took a 34-32 lead into the locker room at halftime, but the Scarlet Raiders shot 64 percent in the second half (16-25) to earn the victory. Despite a back and forth affair in the early goings of the second half, Rutgers-Newark utilized a 16-2 run midway through the stanza to push ahead (57-43) with 9:14 left to play. With five minutes remaining, the Hawks turned up the offensive pressure and cut the Raiders' lead from 14 down to just seven points but couldn't surpass it thanks in large part to the Raiders' shooting efforts. Rutgers-Newark connected on 10-12 free throws down the stretch to earn tonight's victory.

Hunter will be idle until New Year's Eve when they head to Springfield, MA to participate in the James Naismith Tournament hosted by Springfield College. The Hawks will face Eastern Connecticut State University at 1:00pm on December 31st, and will face either the University of New England or Springfield College on New Year's Day.