Paul Oren
DETROIT | Matt Donlan scored 24 points and Braun Hartfield added a career-high 22 points as No. 9 Youngstown State beat No. 8 Cleveland State 84-69 to win its first Horizon League tournament game since 2013.
The Penguins will play top-seeded Oakland in quarterfinal action at the 2017 Little Caesars Horizon League Men’s Basketball Championships at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday night.
With Youngstown State clinging to a 67-65 lead with under four minutes remaining, Hartfield scored five straight points and Cameron Morse converted a 3-point play to stretch the lead back to 75-65 with 2:31 remaining. Hartfield and Morse helped jumpstart the Penguins on a 17-4 run to close out the game. Donlan added four free throws in the final 64 seconds to secure the victory.
Morse, the Horizon League-leading scorer at 22.8 points per game, was limited to just 12 points, but the junior added six assists and four rebounds. Jorden Kaufman had 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Penguins (12-20) while Francisco Santiago added 10 points, six assists and two steals.
The game was a close affair for much of the evening as neither team led by more than two possessions for the first 31 minutes of the game. It wasn’t until the Penguins went on an 8-0 run midway through the second half that a team led by as many as seven points.
Rob Edwards scored a game-high 27 points, including the last 16 points of the game for the Vikings (9-22). Bobby Word had 10 points and four rebounds and Kenny Carpenter added 10 points off the bench.
Paul Oren
No. 10 Milwaukee 85, No. 7 Detroit Mercy 60
Box Score
DETROIT | Jeremiah Bell scored a career-high 31 points and No. 10 Milwaukee made history with an 85-60 win over No. 7 Detroit Mercy in the first round of the 2017 Horizon League Men’s Basketball Championships on Friday night.
The Panthers became the first No. 10 seed to win a game in Horizon League tournament history. In the previous seven seasons that the conference had 10 league members, the No. 10 seed lost all seven times by an average of more than 15 points per game.
Milwaukee will play No. 2 Valparaiso in quarterfinal action on Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena.
Bell, who had a previous career-high of 16 points, knocked down all three of his shots in the first half, including a pair of 3-pointers that helped Milwaukee open up an early double digit lead over the Titans. The Panthers led by as many as 18 points in the first half before Detroit Mercy used series of runs to cut the deficit to single digits multiple times early in the second half. Milwaukee went more than 12 minutes without a field goal before Bell hit another 3-pointer to stretch the lead back to 53-40 with 10:31 remaining. The Titans would never get closer as Bell scored 23 of his 31 points in the second half, helping to give Milwaukee a 38-6 advantage in bench scoring.
Brock Stull had 20 points and 11 rebounds for the Panthers (9-23) for his fourth double-double of the year and his first since he had 16 points and a career-high 17 rebounds against Detroit Mercy on Jan. 27. Cody Wichmann added 10 points and seven rebounds. The Panthers shot 56.8 percent (25-44) from the floor while the Titans were just 34.4 percent (21-61).
Horizon League Freshman of the Year Corey Allen led the Titans (8-23) with 18 points while Jaleel Hogan had 10 points and one rebound before fouling out in 29 minutes of action.
Tags: Horizon League - Men's Basketball
