THE BASICS:
 
- Score: No. 14 WPI 68, MIT 52
 
- Records: MIT (13-12); No. 14 WPI (23-2)
 
- Location: Worcester, Mass. (Harrington Auditorium)
 
- The Lead: In the NEWMAC Tournament semifinals on Thursday night, the No. 5 seeded MIT men's basketball team dropped a 68-52 final to top-seeded and No. 14 ranked WPI as the Worcester Engineers advance to the program's fourth straight NEWMAC final.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED:
 
- In a low-scoring first half, the teams traded the lead early on before WPI went on a 13-0 run to stretch the lead out to 22-17 with 8:12 left in the half. The MIT defense hung tough over the remainder of the period, holding the Worcester Engineers to just nine points over the final 10 minutes of the first as the game headed to the half at 27-14 in favor of WPI.
 
- Junior Alex Cho (San Diego, Calif.) led the Engineers with eight points in the opening period, while John Adams had six for WPI.
 
- MIT came out firing to start the second half and after three straight three-pointers from senior Julian Manyika (San Francisco, Calif.), the Cambridge Engineers had climbed back to within nine at 34-25 with 14:34 on the clock. Senior Dan Pilsbury (Millington, N.J.) continued the MIT run with a layup to cut the lead down to seven and force a WPI timeout.
 
- Coming out of the timeout, WPI put together an 8-0 run to extend to the 44-27 edge behind seven points from Colin McNamara. The hosts led by double digits the rest of the way, despite MIT continuing to fight and closing to within 56-45 with 2:52 left after a baseline jumper from senior Ian Hinkley (Raleigh, N.C.). WPI knocked down 10 free throws over the final minute of play to secure the win and the berth in the NEWMAC title game.
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS:
 
- Manyika led MIT with 18 points as he was 6-for-11 from three-point land. Cho also finished with 14 points, along with eight points and seven rebounds from Hinkley.
 
- McNamara led WPI with 24 points, while Adams recorded a 14-point, 13-rebound double-double and Aidan Callahan added 10 points.
 
- WPI outrebounded MIT by a 37-26 final, while MIT forced 14 WPI turnovers and 11 assists on 19 made field goals.
 
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