WARRENSBURG , Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team fell victim to a hot shooting performance from Central Missouri Saturday night, as the Mules shot better than 50 percent from the field in the second half and made 12 three-pointers to defeat the Miners 87-62.
UCM (3-0), playing in its home opener, made a first half run to take as much as a 12-point lead before halftime, then answered every S&T run in the second half to hand the Miners their first loss in four contests on the season.
After the Mules scored the first four points of the game, the Miners answered with eight straight to take a four-point lead. A dunk by
Alex Benassi (Lee's Summit, MO/Lee's Summit) off a feed from
Ikenna Okeke (Bolingbrook, IL/Romeoville) gave S&T its four-point lead – which would turn out to be its largest lead of the contest.
Central regained the lead, only to see the Miners take it back at 15-14 on a lay-in by
Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) and again at 18-17 after Froebe drained a three-pointer. But after the Froebe three, UCM ran off 11 straight points to go up 28-18 and eventually led by 12 after a Keith Kiner dunk.
The Miners trimmed the lead down to five late in the first half, but Central would go to the locker room with an eight-point advantage. S&T had the margin down to six early in the second half after
Andrew Young (Ballwin, MO/Marquette) made two free throws, but the Mules pushed their lead back into double figures and used an 8-0 run – with six of the points coming from Jalen Knott to extend the margin to 16 with 14:19 remaining.
S&T made a run to get the lead back down to nine, but the Mules delivered the decisive blow a short time later as they outscored the Miners 11-0 in a four-minute stretch.
The Miners had four players in double figures, led by Johnson and
Lovell Williams (Rogers, MN/Maple Grove) with 11 points apiece while Froebe and
Cameron Stovall (St. Louis, MO/Vashon) each finished with 10. S&T shot 41.1 percent for the game, but made only 32 percent of its shots after the intermission.
Central also had four players in double figures, led by Caleb Nero with 19 points.
Missouri S&T will be idle until Nov. 30, when it opens Great Lakes Valley Conference play against Quincy at Gibson Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
