New York, N.Y. - Hunter College men's basketball had their second-best offensive game of the season on Tuesday night, but it was not enough to stop New York University from getting the 89-76 victory at the Sportsplex.

Hunter is now 3-6 this season, while the Violets improved to 4-5 overall. 

The Hawks posted an impressive field goal percentage of 51.6 for their second-best mark of the year, but the Violets found more second-chance points and points off the bench to get the win.

Down 6-4 in the first four minutes, Hunter's James Blair hit his first three-pointer of the game to give the Hawks the advantage. The Purple and Gold followed that up with four more points in the next minute to force an NYU timeout. The Violets got back into the game, but Blair silenced them with two points at the 12:30 minute mark and Gio Gabbidon and Danny Fusco scored a combined eight points to give the Hawks a seven-point lead with 10 minutes left in the half.

The Hawks were able to stay in control of the game as Blair hit his third shot from behind the arc to put them up by nine points, but the Violets went to work in the last three minutes of the half to tie the score, 41-41 at halftime.

NYU began to pull away at the beginning of the second, taking a ten-point lead. Gabbidon answered for the Hawks with a layup to spark a run that featured points from Fusco and Abraham Rosow to help them trail by just two with 11 minutes to play. As the Violets began to lengthen their lead again, Melvin Collins hit a layup to keep the gap to just six points with 4:36 on the clock, but NYU continued to score, finishing the game with an 89-76 win.

Keener led Hunter scorers with 21 points on a 9-13 shooting performance, while grabbing a team-high seven rebounds. Blair added 15 after hitting six of ten shots from the field in the loss. Fusco chipped in 14 points and dished out five assists, as Gabbidon and Collins posted 12 points each.

The team returns to action after the holidays when they travel to Amherst College on December 30.