Emory senior Alex Greven scored 20 points and classmate Michael Friedberg added 19 but it wasn't enough as the men's basketball team dropped an intense decision to LaGrange College in the opening game of the Oglethorpe Thanksgiving Classic.  The Panthers ran their record to 3-0 following an 84-81 decision over the Eagles who slipped to 3-1.

Emory ended the game shooting 43.5 percent (30-of-69) from the floor while LaGrange shot 47.6 percent (30-of-63).  The three-point shooting was nearly identical with Emory hitting on 32 percent (8-of-25) of its triple tries while LaGrange connected on 31.3 percent (5-of-16). 

LaGrange rallied from an 18 point first-half deficit in coming away with the win.  Panther senior Marcus Vaughn led all scorers with 24 points, 17 in the second stanza, and finished the contest sinking 10-of-14 from the floor (seven-of-eight during the final 20 minutes).  Vaughn also grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds.   Friedberg drained nine-of-16 from the floor for Emory, picked up 10 rebounds and recorded four blocked shots with his four rejections moving him into first place on the school's all-time list that category with 140, surpassing the previous standard of 138 held by Tim Garrett (1986-90).  Greven paced the Eagles' scoring effort with 20 points and dished out six assists.  Rounding out the double-figure scorers for Emory were junior McPherson Moore with 15 points, sinking five-of-nine from the field and five-of-five from the foul line, and sophomore Alex Foster who tallied 11 points.

Trailing by a 52-45 count early in the second half, LaGrange rattled off a 20-2 charge over a 6:30 span that put it ahead, 65-54, with 12:00 left in the game.  Vaughn scored six points in that stretch while Kyron Anderson added seven points.   The Eagles rallied back with an impressive 15-2 blitz and took a 69-67 advantage with 7:40 on the clock following a bucket by Friedberg.  The Panthers' Vaughn then scored seven straight points as they bounced back to claim a 74-69 margin with 5:32 remaining.  After a Friedberg jumper cut the deficit to three, a basket by Ira Smith followed by a pair of charity tosses by Vaughn put LaGrange ahead by a 78-71 count with 3:43 left.  Trailing 80-73, a bucket by Friedberg followed by four points by Greven drew Emory to within one point with 35 ticks on the clock.  After a pair of makes from the foul line pushed LaGrange's lead back to three points, the Eagles missed a three-point field goal and the Panthers canned two more free throws to assume an 84-79 lead with 18 seconds.  A basket by Foster with eight seconds on the clock cut the gap to three points, and the Eagles still had life after LaGrange threw away an inbounds pass.  The Eagles launched a three-point attempt with two seconds left but it missed the mark.

In an energy-filled first half, both teams shot 50 percent from the field as Emory took a 49-45 into the locker room at halftime.  Greven and Friedberg accounted for 24 of the team's offensive total with Greven notching 13 and Friedberg 11 points. The Eagles hit nine of their first 13 field goal attempts in taking a 23-8 lead with 13:32 left in the stanza.  A 10-3 LaGrange spurt, finished off by a bucket by Denzel Robinson, drew the Panthers to within eight points with 7:52 on the clock.  Emory responded with 10 unanswered points, eight straight coming from Moore, that gave its biggest cushion of the stanza, 41-23, with 6:06 remaining.  A put-back by Friedberg kept the Eagles ahead by a healthy margin at 45-30 with 4:47 left before the Panthers closed out the stanza on a 19-4 scoring spree to creep back to with four points.

Emory returns to action on Sunday (Nov. 25) when it battles Maryville at Oglethorpe University in a 2:00 p.m. start.