LOS ANGELES — Spencer Levy led all scorers with 23 points and Juwan Rice added 22 as the Occidental men's basketball team got back to .500 with an important SCIAC victory at La Verne, 65-63 on Thursday.

Oxy improves to 2-2 in conference play and 6-6 overall. The Leopards fall to 1-3 and 5-8.

From the Coach: "I'm proud of our entire team's effort and energy tonight," Oxy head coach Brian Newhall said. "We stayed together on offense, played much better on defense and we were just scrappy enough to earn a road win over a good, well-coached team."

Levy scored 18 of his points in the first half and went 5 of 8 from beyond the arc to get Oxy out to a 40-32 lead at halftime.

Rice came up with some important loose-ball plays in the second half and finished the game with five steals, to go along with an aggressive night attacking the basket. He earned five trips to the free throw line, shooting 8 of 9, and managed to play 38 minutes despite picking up three fouls in the first half.

Oxy's Andrew Johnson played inside and out, finishing just one point shy of a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds. Austin Hawk scored eight points and hit a pair of 3-pointers for the Tigers.

Hakim Arnold, La Verne's leading scorer, led the Leopards with 18 points and Brett Stephan scored 16, hitting big 3-pointers to bring ULV close late in the second half. His final 3-pointer just missed as the buzzer sounded.

The Leopards cut Oxy's lead to one point twice in the last 5 minutes, but each time Oxy answered. Johnson rebounded his own miss for a score to give the Tigers a 61-58 edge with 4:11 left and Spencer Levy drew a foul and made a pair of free throws with 2:51 left. 

Turning Point: Levy got a long rebound on a miss by Stephan and kicked a pass ahead to Rice, who easily finished a layup to put Oxy up 65-60 with 2:27 remaining. 

Next Game: The Tigers travel to Thousand Oaks to play at Cal Lutheran on Saturday at 4 p.m.