The concordia university men's basketball team (17-4) closed out their non-conference schedule with a convincing 110-73 victory over north central (minn.) university on tuesday evening at the gangelhoff center. Freshman craig heiman continued his breakout season with a career-high 22 points, hitting 5-6 from three-point range in only 12 minutes of action.

the bears struggled out of the gate, falling behind 7-2 in the first two minutes. But trailing 9-6 at the 16:24 mark set the cu offense off to a 16-0 run to take a 22-9 lead with 13:11 to play in the opening half.

the deficit would not be lower than 10 the rest of the way as the golden bears secured their fifth straight victory to match their season-high winning streak.

five players scored in double-figures as senior kyle marxhausen poured in 14 in just 13 minutes on 5-8 shooting and perfect 4-4 free throw shooting. He also grabbed four rebounds.

senior guard seborn yancy had a career-high 12 points and dropped in a pair of three-pointers in 16 minutes.

senior cortez forte and junior jason birr rounded out the double-digit scoring with 10 apiece. Birr had five assists, four of them coming on heiman three-pointers while forte had four assists of his own. The duo each matched their previous career-highs in assists while birr's 10 points also matched his career-high.

on the glass, concordia was dominant with a 47-32 margin including 19-8 on the offensive end. The rebounding effort was led by james metcalf, who equaled his career-high with eight while matching a season-high six points. Centers drew shepp and chuol chany each contributed seven rebounds with chany scoring eight points and shepp scoring six. All 13 golden bears had at least one rebound.

defensively, concordia had 21 steals and forced 28 turnovers while committing just 14 on offense. marlon walker, james sarbacker, mike cunningham and heiman all had three steals.

concordia scored 60 second half points despite not scoring for the first two minutes.

the bears received solid contributions from reserves paul reineck, scott bullock and grant adams. Reineck had two rebounds and two assists, adams had two points, two rebounds and a steal while bullock scored his first career field points for concordia.

north central was led by rick johnson's double-double with 22 points and 10 rebounds while adding four assists and three steals.

the bears return to nsic action this weekend when they travel to northern state and the university of mary on friday and saturday evening.

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