NEW YORK - The nationally ranked No. 15 Yeshiva University men's basketball team suffered a hard-fought Skyline Conference loss to St. Joseph's College Long Island, 79-76, at Max Stern Athletic Center on Saturday evening. The Maccabees (19-3 overall) are now tied with the Rams of Farmingdale State College for the best record in the Skyline at 12-2, but FSC currently has the tiebreaker due to a better record against the South Division. Thanks to Manhattanville occupying the No. 2 seed as the North Division leader, Yeshiva would be the third seed if the Skyline Conference Championships started tonight.

St. Joseph's Long Island (13-8, 9-5 Skyline) has now won eight of its last 10 games and is slotted in fifth place in the overall standings. It's the Golden Eagles' first win over the Maccabees since February 5, 2017.

The key for the evening was the 3-point shooting. St. Joseph's Long Island shot 55.6% (10-for-18) from 3-point range, while Yeshiva only converted 22.2% (6-for-27) from beyond the arc. The Golden Eagles shot 51.0% from the floor during the evening, while the Maccabees made 46.7% of their shot attempts.

With the game tied at 67, freshman Alec Tabada took a feed from sophomore Spencer Malloy and converted a key layup to give the Golden Eagles the lead for good, with 1:35 left to play. 

For the evening, the Maccabees were led by senior Ryan Turell who netted a game-high 32 points, while dishing out four assists, forcing three steals, and snatching just as many rebounds. Graduate student Gabriel Leifer was a force on both ends of the floor as he scored nine points, clutched 13 boards, distributed eight assists, blocked four shots, and collected three steals. Junior Ofek Reef scored 14 points, while senior Eitan Halpert drained four triples (13 points total) and brought down six rebounds. 

It was a back and forth game with 10 ties and 16 lead changes. 

St. Joseph's Long Island took its largest lead of the game, 32-25, with 5:11 remaining in the opening half. The Maccabees scored the next four points to shrink the deficit to three. However, a 3-point field goal by graduate student Gordon Shouler put YU in a 35-29 hole with 3:25 left before the break. On Yeshiva's next possession, Halpert found Reef, who connected on the layup to narrow Yeshiva's deficit to four. With just over two minutes to go, Leifer intercepted the opposition's pass and then converted a fastbreak layup to shrink the Golden Eagles' lead to 35-33. Both teams were held scoreless for the rest of the half.

Halpert got hot in the second half as he converted four consecutive 3-point shot attempts to help Yeshiva go from trailing 44-40 to taking a 52-49 advantage with 12:26 left to play in regulation time. Turell added a pair of free throws to give the Maccabees their largest lead of the second half, at 54-49, with 10:51 to go. 

St. Joseph's Long Island countered with an 8-1 run, capped off by a 3-point shot from senior Matthew Hirdt, to retake the lead at 57-55 with 6:37 to go. 

Later in the stanza, Turell converted on back-to-back jumpers to give the Maccabees a 63-59 benefit with 4:31 left to play. The Golden Eagles once again answered, this time scoring six unanswered points, to grab the 65-63 advantage with 2:50 to go. Junior Matan Zucker hit a pair of free throws to allow YU to even the contest, but Malloy answered on the other end of the floor with a layup to put the Macs in another two-point hole with 2:22 to go. The Maccabees once again kept up, as Zucker fed the ball to Turell who buried a jumper to tie the game once again, 67-67, with 2:01 remaining in regulation time.

However, Tabada's key layup gave the Golden Eagles the 69-67 benefit with 1:35 to go. YU had a chance to tie the game, but a Macs' layup attempt was blocked by Hirdt, who grabbed the rebound. With the visiting team in possession of the ball, Shouler drained a 3-point dagger to inflate SJCLI's advantage to two possessions, at 72-67, with 56 ticks left on the clock. The Golden Eagles were able to hit key free throws down the stretch to secure the Skyline victory.

Five players scored in double figures for St. Joseph's Long Island, including 17 points from sophomore Ryan McNeely. 

Yeshiva will take on College of Mount Saint Vincent, in an important Skyline matchup at Peter Jay Sharp Center, on Tuesday evening. Tipoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m.