NEW YORK, N.Y.— The John Jay men's basketball team gave nationally prominent New York University (NYU) all it could handle and fell just an eyelash short in the end as the Bloodhounds were defeated by the Violets 67-65 in an exciting championship game of the NYU Tip-off tournament.

The loss was John Jay's first of the season, the Bloodhounds are now 1-1. NYU improves to 2-0 on the young campaign.

John Jay was led by their pair of all-tournament players, Isaiah Holman and Jamar Harry. Holman led the Bloodhounds with 16 points, while Harry added 12. Fellow teammates Swindon Charles and Kris Owens added 12 each as well. Charles shot 6-for-12 and had a team-high eight rebounds, four steals and three blocks. NYU, who is ranked just outside the D3hoops.com preseason top-25 poll (27th) was led by Kyle Stockmal with 17 points and six assists, while tournament MVP Carl Yaffe had 16 points on 7-for-10 shooting and a game-high nine rebounds.

The Bloodhounds played scrappy throughout and hustled for loose balls, giving the host Violets fits at times. NYU led nearly the entire contest, as John Jay's only two leads lasted a combined fifty seconds: 4-3 (for twenty three seconds) in the first half and 41-40 (for twenty-seven seconds) in the second half. NYU pulled away on several occasions and led by as much as 14 in the opening stanza. But the gutsy Bloodhounds never quit and narrowed what appeared to be widening deficits each time.

The Violets led 34-20 with 3:22 remaining before halftime. But John Jay closed out the stanza on a 15-4 run to pull to within three at the break as John Jay was down 38-35 at halftime. A three point field goal by Owens with two seconds left capped the half ending spurt.

NYU started the second half scoring the first two points to go up by five (40-35 with forty-three seconds gone by), before the Bloodhounds scored six straight to take their lone lead of the second half of 41-40 with 17:27 remaining.

Midway through the second half, NYU appeared to have weathered the storm as the Violets went back up by 14 with 9:57 to go. But another Owens three point field goal with 9:36 to play ignited another massive John Jay run to get John Jay back into the contest. The run was capped by a continuation three point play by Korede Griffith who stole a lazy pass and knocked down the lay-up. His free throw with 2:55 remaining made the score 62-60 at that moment.

Overall, Griffith led the spark in the second half. His tremendous hustle and failing to quit helped the Bloodhounds force NYU into 25 turnovers. Overall he had seven points, two assists, two blocks and four steals.

With the Bloodhounds still trailing 62-60 with under a minute to go, John Jay just missed tying the score with forty-six seconds left when a short jumper in the paint by Harry, rimmed out before NYU grabbed the rebound.

After NYU made one of two free throws with thirty-one seconds left to make the score 63-60, John Jay had another chance to tie the score, but the three point attempt landed just short.

Clutch free throw shooting by the Violets in the closing seconds preserved the NYU lead.

John Jay held a 32-30 advantage on points in the paint, 25-16 on points off turnovers and 33-15 in bench scoring.

John Jay returns to action on Tue. Nov. 29 for its home opener and Homecoming night against the City College of New York at 7 p.m.