ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (4-11, 1-7 NSIC) fell behind early and were unable to recover as they lost to Wayne State (5-10, 3-6 NSIC) by a score of 71-51 on Friday night at Gangelhoff Center.
 
Wayne State jumped back ahead in the all-time series as they moved to 19-18 in the 37 meetings by completing the regular season sweep of the Golden Bears.
 
Concordia struggled to get off to a fast start as they hit just 28.0% (7-25) from the floor before the break before they finished the night at 40.4% (19-47). WSC was efficient throughout the game with marks of 46.2% or better in each half to finish at 47.2% (25-53). The Wildcats also took advantage of turnovers as they turned 18 CSP turnovers into 21 points while the Golden Bears collected seven points on 10 turnovers for the Wildcats.
 
An area in which the Golden Bears found some success was off the bench as they held a 22-19 edge in bench scoring as four different players registered points, led by Matt Ambriz's team-high 12. Ambriz shot 4-9 from the floor and chipped in a pair of assists in his 30 minutes of action.
 
Bryndan Matthews joined Ambriz in double figures with 11 points on 4-7 shooting to go along with four boards while Diallo Powell added nine points on 4-8 from the field.
 
Ted Brown and Carter Brooks were active on the glass with a game-high seven rebounds apiece while Sam Siganos was solid distributing with five assists and just one turnover.
 
Jordan Cornelius paced a balanced attack for the Wildcats with 14 points while Vance Janssen, Kendall Jacks and Austin Esters all finished with at least 12 points each.
 
Things couldn't have gotten off to a much worse start for Concordia as the Wildcats grabbed the first 13 points of the game while holding CSP off the board for nearly five minutes. After the bench unit entered play, they shifted the momentum back in CSP's favor with eight straight points and 13 of 15 to quickly close the gap back to two at the 12:22 mark. Wayne State managed to push the lead back to eight a few times over the next few minutes, but the Golden Bears chipped it back down to three at 24-21. From there, WSC shut the door again and held Concordia to just two points over the final four minutes to build their largest lead of the half at 36-22 before taking a 36-23 advantage into the break after a late CSP free throw.
 
After the two teams traded buckets for the first few minutes of the second half, the Wildcats grew their lead beyond 20. CSP remained within 15 at 50-35 before a 9-0 run gave WSC their biggest lead of the game at 24 with 9:06 to play. The lead remained above 20 for much of the rest of the way until the closing minutes as the Golden Bears cut it to 69-51 late before Wayne State closed out the win 71-51.
 
The Golden Bears will look to bounce back tomorrow night at 6 p.m. as Augustana comes to Gangelhoff Center to close out the weekend.