st. Cloud, minn. - concordia university's starting five only scored 26 points tonight, not helping the squad in their slow start as they were unable to recover from a 19 point halftime deficit in an 83-71 loss at 16th-ranked st. Cloud state's halenbeck hall on wednesday night. The huskies extend their winning streak to nine and have won 19 of their last 21 while the golden bears have dropped three of four. Scsu is tied for first in the league at 16-3 while concordia is in sixth at 10-9. The golden bears did clinch a berth in the nsic tournament this evening, but their seed could be anywhere from fifth through eighth heading into their last game at upper iowa on saturday at 4:00 p.m. box score

halenbeck hall has never been friendly to concordia, where they have yet to win in seven meetings now. And the sluggish start didn't help matters. The huskies turned a modest six point edge near the midway point of the half (22-16) into a 17 point lead with a 13-2 run over the next four-plus minutes. They'd extend the lead to its largest of the half, 19 points, 42-23 before heading into the break leading cu 44-25.

in the first half, scsu dominated the paint with an 18-4 scoring margin including 13-2 off second chances and cu only received nine points from their starters in the opening frame. Concordia shot just 27.6% (8-29) from the field but made seven of their eight free throws to compensate. Meanwhile, scsu shot 53.1% (17-32) from the field and knocked down five three-pointers, three coming at the hand of josh ortmann who scored 12 first half points to ignite the first half run.

in the second half, concordia saw their play improve considerably, shooting 53.6% (15-28) from the floor and 14-18 (77.8%) at the foul line as they put up 46 points on the huskies.

but st. Cloud state shot 24 second half free throws, making 19 as they were able to put away concordia at the stripe for the second time this season to get the series sweep. Earlier this year, scsu made 35 of 44 free throws, this time they finished the night 24 of 32 while concordia was a solid 21 of 26.

scsu expanded the lead to 20 points only once in the second half before concordia was able to cut into the margin with under nine minutes to play when senior sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) made a pair of free throws as he scored four points during a 9-0 spurt that cut the score to 59-49. Ricks finished with nine on the night with a pair of steals.

scsu continued to defend their double-digit lead successfully, not allowing concordia into range where they could make a run. It took until 48 seconds left before cu was able to get within 10, a nine point deficit after three free throws by junior courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) but they never had the ball with a chance to get any closer as the free throws kept falling for the huskies. Tyler scored five with three assists in 17 minutes in a rare start.

concordia's bench outscored scsu's 29-4 in the second half and cu bettered the huskies 11-1 in second chance scoring after the break and only finished three rebounds back of one of the top rebounding teams in the league.

concordia was led by junior guard andrew kuderer (eden prairie, minn.) with 14 points on 6-9 shooting including a pair of three's in 28 minutes off the bench. Junior post dan vandervieren (eden prairie, minn.) was the only other player in double-figures for cu with 10 points and five rebounds on 5-9 shooting in 17 reserve minutes.

junior post chris hamblin (eagan, minn.) had career-highs with nine points and eight rebounds including five offensive boards and 7-9 free throw shooting. Hamblin came in a 42.1% free throw shooter in 19 attempts and had previous highs of five points and five rebounds. He upped his free throw percentage to 53.6% on the season with the strong performance at the line.

they didn't have an answer for one of the top post players in the league, though as matt schneck produced 27 points and 11 rebounds on 9-12 shooting. Schneck, who averages a double-double, had 25 points and nine rebounds earlier in the year against cu. He did commit five turnovers, however, and the golden bears were able to get him and the other two husky starting posts into foul trouble with four on each of them and three on reserve center jesse fisher. Ortmann finished with 19 and taylor witt finished with 18 as the trio combined for 64 points.

while the news that the golden bears will play a postseason game in the nsic sanford health men's basketball tournament did come out of the evening, the golden bears will not be pleased with the road loss and will look to rebound on saturday afternoon when they travel south to fayette, iowa to face the peacocks of upper iowa in the regular season finale.