marshall, minn. - keeping with historical trends, the concordia men's basketball team (11-13, 9-8 nsic) was unable to pull a road victory this weekend in their trip to the southwest, losing last night to minnesota state in mankato, minn. Before tonight's 78-50 loss at #24 southwest minnesota state (22-5, 14-3 nsic) at the r/a facility. Concordia has only won one game in 18 meetings all-time combined between the two sites. Tonight, concordia's only lead was a one point edge early in the first half as the mustangs dominated throughout, leading by as much as 31 in the second half. box score

junior forward craig heiman (marshall. Wis.) scored a game-high 20 points for concordia, shooting an efficient 9-15 from the floor. But cu's leading rebounder only pulled down one board in what was a common theme this weekend.

tonight, concordia was outrebounded 40-33 including 12-7 on the offensive end. Smsu exerted their dominance in the paint to the tune of 50-16 scoring inside and 17-11 on second chance points.

a facet of cu's game that usually is solid, win/lose or home/away is the turnover differential. Concordia turned the ball over 17 times tonight, tied for their second most of the season, only turning the ball over two more times in their overtime loss to st. Thomas back on dec. 30. The mustangs took care of the basketball, turning it over just five times. That anomoly for cu led to an smsu advantage of 16-2 in points off turnovers.

a night after scorching the nets from long range against the 17th ranked mavericks, cu struggled from long range against the 24th ranked mustangs, hitting just 5-23 (21.7%).

aside from heiman, no one else scored in double-figures compared to five last night.

concordia shot just 34.0% from the floor and attempted 22 fewer field goals than smsu, who shot a much more efficient 47.2% from the floor.

ross demasi led smsu with 19 points while fellow post taylor huseby added 17. The dominant front court tandem combined to shoot 15-21 and were 6-7 at the line together.

after the loss, concordia sits solely in eighth place in the league standings with three more league games to play. They are 1.5 games behind augustana, who lost at winona state tonight. Smsu sits a game ahead of minnesota state and winona state for the league's regular season title and the top seed in the nsic tournament. Cu is three games ahead of bemidji state with three games to play for the eighth seed in the league tournament.

photo courtesy www.photo-resource.com