MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Just 16 hours after pulling off an impressive upset, Concordia-St. Paul dropped an exhibition game 84-62 against Elon University on Saturday afternoon at UWM Panther Arena on day two of three at the Black and Gold Shootout hosted by the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
The game was an official contest for Elon, who improved to 3-2 on the year marking the second straight day the Bears faced a winning Division I program during the early part of the 2017-18 basketball season.
With the exhibition season now in the rearview, CSP will face Florida International on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Panther Arena on the final day of the Black and Gold Shootout in an official regular season contest.
Sophomore
Avan Ward led Concordia with 20 points on 8-20 shooting, adding seven rebounds while playing turnover free basketball in the backcourt. Junior
Bryndan Matthews added a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds. He was efficient from the floor at 6-11. Both guards added a pair of assists.
Sophomore center
Ted Brown gave the Bears an inside punch with 12 points on 6-8 shooting.
But a night after hitting 10 three-pointers at a 50 percent clip, the Bears went cold from the arc, hitting half as many (5) in the same number of attempts (20) to shoot 25 percent.
Concordia was solid offensively in the first half with a 51.6 percent (26-61) shooting line but 1-8 three-point shooting in the half and only one free throw attempt suppressed the scoring to 33 points despite the efficient field goal percentage.
Meanwhile, Elon had its stroke going in the first half, knocking down eight three-pointers (8-18, 44%) and shooting 54.1 percent (20-37) from the field, committing just one turnover while forcing five. The Phoenix scored 50 in the opening 20 minutes for a 17-point lead at the break.
In the second half, Concordia cooled overall, shooting 33.3 percent (10-30) but managed to get five points at the stripe in as many attempts and added four three-pointers (4-12).
Elon broke free from CSP early on, using a 13-2 run spanning just under four and a half minutes to claim a 23-10 lead nearing the midway point (11:00).
The Bears weren't able to trim the Phoenix lead under double-digits the rest of the way, but kept the lead hovering between the mid to upper teens for most of the game. Elon's largest lead was 22 in the closing minutes of the contest.
The Phoenix were led by Dainan Swoope with 25 points on 6-11 three-point shooting along with a 6-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Dmitri Thompson added 16 points and collected eight rebounds.
Elon finished the game shooting 46.3 percent (31-67) after Concordia's defense clamped down to limit them to 36.7 percent (11-30) second half shooting. Elon drained 14 three-pointers on the afternoon at a 36.8 percent rate (14-38) and held a 39-32 edge on the glass.
A 13-to-7 turnover margin led Elon to a 20-8 advantage in points off turnovers and 13-2 in fastbreak opportunities.
