Fast Start Leads to Green Bay Win

Men's Basketball Scoreboard (Dec. 17)
Green Bay 66, Morehead State 50
Kennesaw State 90, Youngstown State 84
SMU 67, UIC 46
UCF 75, Detroit 70

Green Bay 66, Morehead State 50
With junior Carrington Love scoring seven early points, Green Bay (8-2) jumped out to a 12-0 lead on Wednesday night and cruised to a 66-50 victory over visiting Morehead State at the Resch Center.

Senior Keifer Sykes (Chicago, Ill.) scored a game-high 17 points and tallied three steals and Love added 12 points and five assists to lead the Phoenix. Sykes missed his first five shots before making four of his last five and also connected on all eight of his free throws. Love went 5-of-7 from the floor in tallying his third-straight double-figure scoring effort.

Head coach Brian Wardle’s defense was solid again, holding Morehead State to just 33.3 percent shooting from the floor en route to its third-straight victory. The Eagles missed their first 10 shots from the field as the Phoenix raced out to the big lead. It was the third time this season that the Phoenix scored at least the first 10 points of the game.

Sparked by the quick start and 24 free throw attempts, Green Bay led 36-27 at halftime. Morehead State shot just 26.7 percent from the field in the opening half (8-30).

The Phoenix opened the second half on an 11-4 spurt, and Morehead State could get no closer than 13 the rest of the night.

Senior Greg Mays (Chicago, Ill.) added nine points and junior Jordan Fouse (Racine, Wis.) grabbed nine rebounds and three of Green Bay’s 10 steals.

Kennesaw State 90, Youngstown State 84
Junior Bobby Hain scored a career-high 26 points and tied a career best with 17 rebounds, and three other players scored in double figures, but the Youngstown State men's basketball team dropped a 90-84 decision to Kennesaw State on Wednesday evening at the Beeghly Center.

Senior Shawn Amiker scored 21 points with nine rebounds, senior DJ Cole posted 18 points and five assists and sophomore Marcus Keene had 14 points and seven assists for the Penguins, who fall to 7-6.

Leading Kennesaw State, who improves to 4-7, was Nigel Pruitt with a game-high 29 points while Delbert Love had 24 points and eight assists.

The Owls also made 11 3-pointers, six by Pruitt and four more by Love, and shot 53.2 percent from floor for the game.

The Penguins connected on 49.3 percent from the floor but shot just 25 percent (3-for-12) from behind the arc.

Trailing by 10, 86-76, with a minute left, a layup by Hain, three free-thwos by Cole and a 3-pointer by Cole got the Penguins within four, 88-84, with 17 seconds left.

After Pruitt split a pair of free throws, Cole missed a 3-pointer with eight seconds left that would have cut the lead down to two.

Pruitt added a free throw with one second remaining for the game's final score.

The Owls, who shot 55.6 percent in the second half

The first half featured five ties and 10 lead changes during the first 11 minutes of the game.

The Penguins largest lead was five points, 19-14, with 11:14 to go in the half after a Hain jumper.

A dunk by Amiker stopped a 7-0 run by the Owls and knotted the game at 21-21 with 9:26 remaining.

KSU built its lead to seven points, 34-27, but the Penguins used a 10-2 run to take a 37-36 lead with 2:15 left after a Sidney Umude putback.

The Owls outscored the Penguins 10-4 over the last two minutes of the half to take a 46-41 lead into the lockerroom at halftime.

SMU 67, UIC 46
The UIC men’s basketball team (3-9) trailed SMU (7-3) by four points in the second half after a 15-3 Flames’ run, but the Mustangs pulled away down the stretch for their fifth straight win by a final of 67-46. With former U.S. President George W. Bush sitting courtside at sold out Moody Coliseum, Dallas native and UIC senior Marc Brown scored a team-high 15 points for his 30th career double-digit game.

The Flames were down 31-15 in the early goings of the second half, but a jumper by sophomore Markese McGuire at the 18:23 mark sparked UIC’s run. The Flames held SMU scoreless for more than four minutes during the offensive spurt, however National Player of the Year candidate Nic Moore broke the drought with a pair of free throws with 13:37 on the clock. Moore finished the night with 16 points, on 5-of-7 shooting.

The Mustangs went back up by 14 points (48-34) at the 10-minute mark after scoring seven straight. UIC made one final attempt at a comeback with 8:45 remaining as they pulled to within nine (50-41) of SMU, after Brown’s third three-ball of the game and a Lance Whitaker jumper.  SMU ended the contest outscoring UIC by a margin of 17-5, improving its home record to 7-1.

Whitaker received the start at point guard tonight, his first nod since Nov. 29 and third of the season. The redshirt freshman was solid with the ball as he dished out four assists and had zero turnovers.

Freshman Tai Odiase upped his team-leading blocks total to 24 as the big man swatted three against the Mustangs. Odiase added six points, three rebounds and two steals.

Junior Jake Wiegand grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, marking the 10th occurrence this season he has paced UIC on the boards.

The Flames’ defense forced SMU to commit a season-high 20 turnovers and held the Mustangs to 67 points, nearly five points under their season average of 71.9.

UCF 75, Detroit 70
Senior forward Juwan Howard Jr. scored a game-high 25 points, but for a second-straight game that wasn't enough as the University of Detroit Mercy men's basketball team fell, 75-70, Wednesday night to Central Florida at CFE Arena.

The Titans (6-5) trailed by 18 – their largest deficit of the season – 51-33 with 14:06 left in regulation, before trimming the lead to three, 68-65 with 29 seconds left. But the Knights made 7-of-8 free throws down the stretch to hold on for the win.

Howard finished with 25 points – 15 in the second half – three rebounds, three assists, two blocked shots and a steal, while freshman Paris Bass added 11 points to go along with a team-high six rebounds. Sophomore guard Matthew Grant pitched in eight points while dishing out four assists.

UCF (6-4) opened the game with an 11-2 run after connecting on its first three 3-pointers, before the Titans responded with a 17-3 run capped off with a 3-pointer from Howard to take a 19-14 lead with 9:40 left in the first half. But the Knights closed the half with a 21-8 run to take a 35-27 lead into the locker room. Howard led Detroit with 10 points in the first half, while Bass had seven.

The Knights then extended their run to 37-14 in the second half to build their largest lead of the game 51-33 with 14:06 left. The Titans were able to trim the lead to 10 following eight quick points from Howard, Grant and Patrick Ackerman, who was fouled during a dunk to make the score 51-41 with 12:05 remaining. But the Knights were able to push the lead back to 13 with 4:27 left, before Detroit used a late 9-1 run to make the score 68-65 with 29 seconds left.

Detroit finished the game shooting 46.6 percent overall, including 8-of-18 from 3-point territory, while UCF finished shooting 50 percent overall and 9-of-20 from downtown. The Knights also made 22 free throws – including seven down the stretch – while Detroit made just eight. Both teams finished tied with 28 rebounds and 15 assists.