MELBOURNE, Fla. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (4-0) continued their early season barrage from deep as they rode their perimeter shooting to an 85-69 win over Georgian Court (0-5) in the Florida Tech Thanksgiving Tournament on Friday.
The win for the Golden Bears moved their record to 4-0 for the first time since 2004-05 and sends them to Saturday's championship game with a chance to move to 5-0 for the first time in the DII-era. CSP will face the winner of Florida Tech and UPR Bayamon tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m.
CSP hit at least 14 threes for the third time in four games as they buried a season-best 16 on 31 attempts (51.6%) from beyond the arc in the victory. The 16 made threes tied for the second most in program history, one shy of the record set against UW-River Falls back on Dec. 16, 2006. Amazingly, Concordia has put up three of their top seven best performances from beyond the arc in the DII-era already this season.
In addition to falling one shy of the team record,
Hayden Baughman was one shy of the individual program record as he went 7-13 from three-point range to finish with a career-best 21 points. Baughman became the fourth different played at CSP to hit at least seven threes in a game as Brian Jamros did it three times, Matt Cadwell did it once and Dan Torrez did it once. Baughman's seven were the most since Cadwell hit eight back on Feb. 28, 2009.
Isaiah McKay put up an impressive shooting performance of his own as he was even more efficient from deep as he connected on 5-7 from three and 8-13 from the floor to give him a game-high 23 points. McKay flirted with a triple-double as he also added nine assists and eight rebounds to stuff the stat sheet. The senior transfer has been incredibly consistent early in his CSP career as he as collected at least 19 points, five rebounds and two assists in each of the first four games of the season.
Bryndan Matthews made it three consecutive double-doubles with 19 points and 11 boards while
Lee Higgins also reached double figures with 11 points in the win.
Max Keefe added nine points off the bench as well.
Caleb Bowser provided a bright spot for the Lions with 16 points and seven rebounds off the bench to pace GCU in the loss.
It was a back and forth start to the game as the opening nine minutes saw six lead changes and four ties with neither team leading by more than three during that span. With the Golden Bears holding a two point lead at 14-12 with 13 minutes left in the half, the Lions rattled off a 9-1 run to turn the momentum in their favor with a 21-15 lead. Georgian Court continued to hold a comfortable lead for the next several minutes as they pushed it to as many as nine at 29-20 at the 4:20 before CSP battled back. Concordia held GCU to just four points the rest of the half as they put together an impressive 19-4 run to regain the lead at 39-33 heading to the break.
The Golden Bear lead reached nine as Baughman opened the scoring in the second half, but the Lions chipped away to get back in it just a few minutes later. By the 15:59 mark of the second half, a 13-5 burst had Georgian Court back within one at 47-46, but that would be all the closer they would get as Concordia remained out front. Still up one at 50-49, CSP grabbed 10 of the next 12 points over the next three minutes push their lead back out to nine at 60-51 with 11:24 to play. Concordia's advantage remained five or more the rest of the afternoon as the Golden Bears eventually ballooned their lead to double figures at 69-59 following five straight points. The lead reached double figures for good a few minutes later on another Baughman three as they led by as many as 18 before settling with a final score of 85-69.
