Grand Forks, N.D. — Redshirt freshman Josh Schuler (Urbana, Ohio) scored a team-high 19 points and made all five of his 3-pointers as the Fighting Sioux men's basketball team shot a season-high 61.7 percent en route to posting a 91-82 victory over Texas-Pan American on Thursday at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
The Sioux improved to 9-10 (2-1 GWC) on the season and have won four of five on their current homestand, while the Broncs (3-18, 0-4 GWC) dropped their 12th straight.
Schuler and his four fellow freshmen all reached double figures, including
Brandon Brekke (East Grand Forks, Minn.), who had his second straight double-double with a career-high 17 points and 11 rebounds. The Sioux connected on a season-high 12 3-pointers during the course of the game, only missing on seven of those attempts to put together their best shooting night of the season.
“That was a hard-fought win,” UND head coach
Brian Jones said. “I thought our guys did a much better job of sustaining our advantage tonight and we made our foul shots when they counted. Our guys are a resilient group and we were in similar situations to what we saw against Utah Valley. That's how this league is going to be both at home and on the road and I thought we did a good job of handling those much better tonight.”
Schuler's first 3-pointer of the game sparked a 14-2 run midway through the first half that saw UND build its largest lead of the game at 27-14. Brekke had seven points during that spurt, including a 3-point play as he has now posted three straight double-figure scoring contests.
Freshman
Troy Huff (Milwaukee, Wis.), who added 15 points and made three treys of his own, pushed the lead briefly back to 13 points in the closing minute of the opening half, but a trio of free throws from Jeremy Cleveland cut the visitors deficit to 10 at the break.
Brekke, who made all four of his field goals in the first half, and the Sioux built that 10-point lead on the strength of 62.5 percent shooting from the floor (15 of 24), while holding the Broncs to just a 35.7 percent clip (10 of 28).
The hot-shooting continued for UND after the break, but the Broncs joined the frenzy this time by sinking 66.7 percent of their field goals (14 of 21). Sophomores Aaron Urbanus and Brandon Provost did most of the damage, combining to go 9 of 13 from beyond the arc, including a 6 of 7 stretch in the second stanza.
Sophomore Ruben Cabrera brought the Broncs to within three at 77-74 at the 4:41 mark, but reserve guard
Aaron Anderson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) converted a 3-point play after a nice driving layup and made two more free throws to push the UND lead back to eight.
UTPA would only get as close as five points after that as Anderson scored nine of his 13 points in the closing stretch, including a seven of seven effort from the foul line to seal the win.
Urbanus finished with 20 points along with classmate Ruben Cabrera, who scored his points off the UTPA bench. Provost added 13 points and has made 18 of 24 3-pointers in the Broncs' four GWC games.
Jamal Webb (Buffalo, N.Y.) rounded out the five double-figure scorers for UND with 10 points. He also dished out a game-high eight assists, which were just one shy of his season-high. Anderson also added five assists as the Sioux posted a season-high 20 in that department.
The Sioux will close out their six-game homestand on Saturday against Houston Baptist. The game, which will follow the women's game at 1 p.m., is scheduled to be televised on the Fighting Sioux Sports Network, MidCo Sports Nework and Fox College Sports Central.
– Go Sioux –
