ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (4-20, 1-16 NSIC) dropped Friday night's contest with St. Cloud State (17-9, 13-4 NSIC) by a score of 88-56 at Gangelhoff Center.
St. Cloud State improved to 19-6 all-time against the Golden Bears as they collected their fifth win in the past six meetings.
Shooting proved to be the difference on the night as the Huskies hit an impressive 54.0% (34-63) from the floor and 43.5% (10-23) from deep while Concordia shot 33.9% (21-62) from the floor and 16.7% (3-18) from beyond the arc. SCSU also held a 22-11 edge in assists as well as 21-12 edge in points off of turnovers on the night.
Diallo Powell gave Concordia a spark off the bench with a team-high 15 points to go along with five rebounds as he hit 7-14 from the floor.
Powell was joined by
Bryndan Matthews in double figures as Matthews chipped in 14 points and seven boards as well as three assists on the night.
Max Keefe added eight points while
Ted Brown had six.
Gage Davis and Scottie Stone combined to lead the way for St. Cloud State with 19 points apiece as Davis hit 8-14 and Stone hit 7-13 and 5-10 from three. Davis also had eight rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals while Stone added six boards and three assists.
Jon Averkamp and Mark Hall each chipped in 11 points for SCSU in the win.
For the first six minutes of action, the two teams traded buckets as the Golden Bears matched the Huskies shot-for-shot. With their lead sitting at just one at 11-10, SCSU broke things open from there with a 13-3 run to extend their advantage out to 24-13 at the 8:50 mark. The lead hovered in that area for the next few minutes until growing it to as many as 17 before the break at 43-26. A pair of late free throws from Keefe brought it to the halftime score of 43-28.
The Huskies were right back on the attack to begin the second half as the lead hit 20 after five straight points after the break. CSP twice got it back below 20 before a 7-0 burst grew the advantage to 25 at 57-32. The Golden Bears came back with a 9-1 run to chip it to 17 at 58-41 but that would be as close as they would get the rest of the way. Their largest lead of the night came at 88-51 with 1:23 to play before SCSU closed out the 88-56 win.
Concordia returns to Gangelhoff Center tomorrow night as they host Minnesota Duluth for Golden Bear Bash.
