The Lenoir-Rhyne men’s basketball team used a 24-8 first half run en route to a 72-65 South Atlantic Conference victory over visiting Tusculum Saturday afternoon at Shuford Arena. The Bears (10-9, 5-6 SAC) got 20 points from Tay Smith, Nas Tyson added 15 and Tim Steele tallied a dozen in the victory as LR snaps a four-game losing streak.
The Pioneers (7-10, 5-6 SAC) were led by senior guard Connor Jordan who poured in a game-high 22 points. Junior Akeem Odusipe notched his second double-double of the year with 11 points and 12 rebounds, while redshirt freshman Bryce Jackson accounted for 10 markers as TU moves to 1-8 on the road this season.
With the score tied 15-15 early in the first half, Lenoir-Rhyne scored 12 in a row including a dunk by Smith as the Bears led 27-15 at the 7:17 mark of the period. Tusculum trimmed the deficit to eight on two occasions before LR used a 10-2 spurt to give the Bears their largest lead of the game at 39-23 with two minutes left before halftime. The Pioneers got cut the LR lead to 13 but Tyson would score a layup just before the buzzer as Lenoir-Rhyne led 42-27 at halftime.
Tusculum battled back and opened the second half with a 13-4 run sparked by back-to-back buckets by Jordan to whittle the LR lead to 46-40 with 13:02 remaining. With Lenoir-Rhyne leading 54-47, the Bears pushed their lead back to double-digits with a 7-0 run to extend their advantage to 61-47 with 6:50 to go. LR led 63-49, but Tusculum made another charge with a 12-3 run as junior KJ Crump’s three-pointer at the 2:12 mark made it a five-point game at 66-61. Smith converted a layup with 1:44 remaining, but Jordan answered with his 11th made field goal of the contest to make it a 68-63 game with 1:23 on the scoreboard. LR came up empty on its next possession, but the Pioneers miss a three-point try and would be forced to send the Bears to the free throw line. Sam Martin and Tyson made both of their free throw tries to secure the win for the Bears.
Lenoir-Rhyne finished the game shooting 51 percent and went 14-of-17 at the free throw line for 82 percent. TU shot 46 percent from the floor but only 3-of-18 from three-point territory and 6-of-9 at the foul line. Junior Josiah Morris finished with eight points, Crump and junior Travis Pourciau added five points each and graduate student Jacob Hobbs had four points and three blocked shots.
The Pioneers return to action on Wednesday when they travel to Mars Hill for a 7:30 p.m. contest.
