St. Francis Brooklyn isn’t little brother anymore in the Battle of Brooklyn, and Ben Mockford proved it, answering some trash talk with a career-best performance.
The sweet-shooting southpaw from England hit eight 3-pointers and dropped in 30 points as St. Francis snapped a six-game losing streak to rival LIU-Brooklyn in impressive fashion, pulling away for a 78-64 victory in front of a standing room-only crowd at the Pope Center in Brooklyn Heights.
The senior’s big performance, which came in his first start in four games, began before the opening tip, when an LIU player started chirping.
“I think he said I can’t shoot,” Mockford recalled with a smile.
Mockford was hitting shots from Flatbush Ave. Thursday night, knocking down 11-of-18 from the field, 8-of-14 from beyond the arc and sank all six of his 3-point attempts after the break.
“I feel like that motivated him a lot,” teammate Jalen Cannon said. “When people talk smack to him, that gets him rowdy and ready to play. That was kind of a key to him hitting all [those shots].”
It was a complete performance for St. Francis, which hammered LIU on the boards and crushed them in transition. Cannon led St. Francis’ barrage in the paint, notching his third double-double of the year, with 19 points and 14 rebounds. Point guard Brent Jones stepped up, too, setting a career-high with 12 assists.
“We had 20 offensive rebounds at the half,” St. Francis coach Glenn Braica said. “I’ve never seen that. I thought that was phenomenal.”
The tables have turned in the rivalry. Despite being picked to finish seventh in the 10-team NEC, St. Francis (10-6, 1-0) looks like a legitimate contender to reach its first NCAA Tournament in program history.
It nearly became the first team to reach double-digit wins before conference play started, upsetting Miami, Florida Atlantic and Stony Brook on the road, and nearly clipping second-ranked Syracuse at the Carrier Dome.
LIU (5-9, 0-1), meanwhile, isn’t the same team that won the NEC title the last three years after graduating reigning conference player of the year Jamal Olasewere and losing Julian Boyd, the conference’s top player in 2012, for good last week after he tore his ACL for the third time.
St. Francis played down the victory, saying its next game at Mount St. Mary’s on Saturday is just as important.
“You do want to beat them, but I want to beat everybody,” Braica said. “They’re had a very good run in the league the last few years, and not many teams have beaten them.”
“This isn’t our ultimate goal, to beat LIU. We want to take it a step further and be as good as we can be.”