Rigatuso Joins 1,000-Point Club, No. 19 Baker Falls Short in Top-25 Battle at No. 22 FMU

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - After defeating (RV) Keiser on Friday to begin its Florida trip, No. 19 Baker dropped a top-25 matchup at No. 22 Florida Memorial, 89-82 on Saturday, giving the Wildcats their first setback of the season.

Noah Rigatuso became the second straight BU player to eclipse 1,000 career points this weekend, finishing with 13 against the Lions to bring his career mark to 1,009 total points.

Baker led by two at the half, 35-33, and maintained a slight edge for the first part of the second half before a six-minute scoring drought allowed FMU to jump out ahead as the Lions built a double-digit lead and held on the rest of the way.

Ty Henry led a balanced scoring night for BU with 17 points, while three other Wildcats joined him and Rigatuso in double figures with Kaimen Lennox (13), Ahmed Mahgoub (12) and Nick Whittick (10) rounding out the stat sheet.

FMU took advantage of a whopping 41 trips to the foul line, knocking down 30 of them, more than doubling the 13-for-21 line from BU.

With the Lions taking an early lead to start the game, Lennox and Mahgoub connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to tie the game at 13-13.

The two teams exchanged leads for most of the half with neither side leading by more than five points. Baker used another set of treys to tie things up again at 33-33 before Henry's fadeaway jumper at the buzzer gave the 'Cats a two-point halftime lead.

The back-and-forth continued in the second half with Whittick splashing in a three to put BU back in front and Lennox followed with another triple to make it a five-point advantage. The Wildcats took their biggest lead on a basket from Henry, going up 49-43 five minutes into the second half.

From there, the Lions started to swing things their way, eventually reclaiming the lead with one of their four 3-pointers in the half.

Mahgoub's breakaway layup at the 11:11 mark was the last bucket for BU until Lennox snapped the cold stretch with his final three of the game, seeing the Wildcats' deficit go from one point all the way out to double digits with FMU leading 72-61 with over five minutes left in the game.

BU couldn't overcome the late hole and fell for the first time this season with the Lions finishing off the top-25 matchup, 89-82.

Already with a 28-point outing this year, Rigatuso is coming off of a junior campaign that saw him lead the Wildcats with 550 total points last year, earning him first-team all-conference honors. In his first season at BU, the senior from Omaha, Neb. scored nearly 400 points (393), averaging over 13 points per game.

After winning three of its first four games in non-conference action, Baker opens up the Heart of America season at home with a matchup against Missouri Valley on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m. inside the Collins Center.

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