st. Paul, minn. - concordia university (5-4, 4-0 nsic) made as many shots in the first half tonight (17) in a 68.0 percent shooting period as they made in last night's entire game as they toppled msu moorhead (2-5, 1-3 nsic) 81-68 at the gangelhoff center. The 17-25 first half shooting helped cu build a 46-30 lead at the break and they never looked back. box score
the first half started off close as concordia turned a slim 31-27 lead with 5:27 to play into a 15-3 run to close out the half. The dragons went without a field goal during the entire five and a half minute stretch. The concordia lead was never back under 10 the rest of the way.
cu led by as much as 21 points with under 10 minutes remaining in the contest and didn't let the dragons trim the deficit lower than 13 points down the stretch.
junior point guard mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) sparked concordia by shooting 8-9 from the floor and sinking 20 points. Cunningham provided the highlights with a pair of fastbreak dunks - one in each half. He also had four steals and only needed to play 24 minutes to rack up his 20.
cunningham, quentin barfield (jr., g, milwaukee, wis.), matt hackl (so., f, seymour, wis.) and drew votis (so., c, peshtigo, wis.) combined to shoot 18-20 for the night as concordia shot 56.0 percent (28-50) for the night. Barfield scored 11, hackl nine and votis four points all off the bench as concordia racked up 26 points off the bench.
despite cu's bench productivity, they were drastically oustcored by the dragon bench as justyn burgess led msum with 16 points and xavier reed was the only other dragon to reach double-digits with 10 points. Msu finished with 40 of their 68 points off the bench. Credit the cu defense with holding msum to just 1-9 three-point shooting from the starting five and 4-22 (18.2%) for the night.
the golden bears also received 18 points from junior forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.) as he also added six rebounds and five assists. Half of heiman's points came at the foul line where he connected on 9-11 and shot 4-8 from the field. He is now 21 points shy of 1,000.
heiman's nine free throws were just part of concordia's team advantage of 22-29 free throw shooting for the night, a 75.9 percent rate as a team. Msu moorhead connected on just 14-23, a 60.9 percent clip.
concordia finished with 13 steals and forced 19 dragon turnovers which led to a 19-7 edge in points off turnovers and an 18-8 deficit in fastbreak scoring. Of concordia's 13 steals, junior guard sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) had five to go with cunningham's four. Ricks also scored six points, had five assists and three rebounds.
while concordia assisted on just five of their 17 field goals a night ago, tonight was a different story as they had 19 assists on 28 made baskets while holding msum to just nine on 25 field goals.
the golden bears are one of just two unbeaten teams in the northern sun thus, along with their travel partner, st. Cloud state as the two teams have faced identical league schedules thus far. Concordia returns to non-conference action this thursday, december 20 when they host northwestern college of roseville, minn. At the gangelhoff.
