The Binghamton men’s basketball team hosted Colgate on Wednesday night for a nonconference matchup. After falling behind 48-26 in the first half, the Bearcats could not stage a comeback in the second, dropping their fourth straight game 81-62.

“The game was over after the first half,” said Binghamton head coach Levell Sanders. “I thought we came out nervous, tentative and not being aggressive. [We] didn’t follow our game plan of how we wanted to defend. Offensively we couldn’t execute.”

In the first half, BU (3-6) struggled to get going on offense, conceding an early 10-0 run to Colgate (6-5). Despite responding with five straight points coming out of a timeout, the Bearcats’ defense continued to leave the Raiders open as the lead ballooned to 27-13 less than 10 minutes in. During this span, the visitors shot 11-for-15 from the field and 5-for-7 from three.

“I think we have to stick to and actually carry out our game plan,” Sanders said. “We had so many missed assignments by that first media timeout, and when you play against a good team like [Colgate], they punish you for every mistake you make defensively.”

The Bearcats could not string any consistent offense together as they played from behind the entire half. Binghamton trailed by as many as 23 points in the first half and could not cut the deficit much before time expired. Going into the break BU trailed 48-26 with graduate student forward Miles Gibson leading all Binghamton scorers with 11 points.

“Colgate just totally dominated us today in all facets of the game,” Sanders said. “They moved the ball really well [which] made it tough to guard because the ball is not sticking. With us, it’s a lot easier to guard us because the ball was sticking. One guy was dribbling the ball.”

Binghamton opened the second half with a senior guard Jacob Falko three-pointer. A few minutes later, after a block on defense, BU pushed the ball quickly up the floor finding junior guard John McGriff on the left wing. McGriff pulled up and connected on the open look to bring the hosts’ deficit down to 16.

“We were just a little bit more aggressive,” Sanders said. “When you’re down, there’s no other option. So I thought we were a little bit more aggressive, got out a little bit and ran and got to the foul line … When you’re playing out of desperation like that, there’s no other option, and I thought we did that in the second half better than we did the first half.”

With just under eight minutes remaining, Falko drove in for a layup that was followed up by a McGriff three-pointer for a quick 5-0 BU run. These spurts of offensive output were not enough to make any significant impact on the end result. The closest the hosts got to the Raiders in the second half was 14 points.

Despite the steep defeat, a bright spot on the night was McGriff. The junior tallied 10 of his 11 points in the second half. Gibson finished the game as Binghamton’s leading scorer with 15 while Falko added nine points on 80 percent shooting.

“[Gibson] was efficient again tonight,” Sanders said. “He’s getting better defensively and getting into how we need him to guard, but he was the only one who was really able to get anything going offensively for us tonight.”

In 40 minutes of play, Binghamton did not lead at any point of the contest. The Bearcats, however, shot the ball more efficiently in the second half, shooting 59.1 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from beyond the arc. Despite the hosts outscoring Colgate 36-33 in the second half, they were unable to recover from the deficit made in the first, leading to an 81-62 defeat.

“We just have to keep improving,” Sanders said. “I think you get down and you lose confidence when you don’t think you can improve and get better. I know our guys don’t believe that. We haven’t played our best basketball, but I do think that we are taking some steps.”

BU will hit the road to play Fordham this Friday, Dec. 9. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Rose Hill Gymnasium in New York, New York.