The first game of Atlantic 10 play for both Richmond and host La Salle got off to a sloppy start at Tom Gola Arena as the two teams combined for sixteen turnovers in the first half. La Salle (7-9, 0-2), playing without the talented Aaric Murray who was held out by head coach Dr. John Giannini in what was termed a “coach’s decision”, limited point guard Kevin Anderson to nine points and went into the locker room tied at 32. But Anderson and Justin Harper went off midway through the second half, sparking a 26-2 Richmond (13-4, 2-0) run in the Spiders’ 87-68 victory. Anderson made six of his seven field goal attempts in the second stanza and finished with 27 points while Harper added a double-double (25 points, 10 rebounds), and as a team Richmond shot 61.3% from the field and 53.8% from beyond the arc.

“I was feeling pretty good about the game until Harper started getting wide open threes,” said Dr. Giannini after the game. “They scored a lot of points in the second half; their best players scored a lot of points in the second half. We were completely prepared.”

By comparison La Salle made just 35.3% of their shots in the final twenty minutes and hit just two of ten three-pointers as they were incapable of matching the visitors’ scoring prowess. Cole Stefan led the Explorers with 15 points with Earl Pettis (12 points, six rebounds) and Jerrell Williams (10 points, five rebounds) also reaching double figures in a losing effort. Williams became the 49 th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark with a free throw with 3:51 remaining. But without Murray available at all and point guard Ruben Guillandeaux (0-8 FG, two points) coming off the bench due to the team’s struggles of late La Salle shot just 34% for the game and had no answers once Richmond got going.