The Wayne State men’s basketball team had.a nice weekend on the home court at Rice Auditorium, capped by an upset of nationally-ranked Minnesota State.
The Wildcats used 26-of-30 free throw shooting to hold off No. 25-ranked Minnesota State 79-68 Saturday afternoon, improving to 7-1 at home this season.
Despite Minnesota State leading for just 20 seconds of the contest, the game was close throughout until Wildcat free throws late sealed the win.
Wayne State took a quick 9-2 lead four minutes into the contest. MSU rallied and took their lone lead of the game at 13-11 on a Ryland Holt basket at the 11:01 mark of the first half.
The Wildcats came back and built an eight-point lead at 23-15 with 5:39 to go following a Jordan Janssen three-point play. The Mavericks scored the next eight points to knot the score at 23-23 before WSC closed the first half with a 31-27 halftime lead.
The Wildcats started the second half strong and built their first double digit lead at 40-29 on a Justin Eagins 3-pointer.
Minnesota State battled back again and got within one at 42-41 with 12:00 remaining, and were still within two at 51-49 with 8:38 to play when WSC started to put the game out of reach.
The ‘Cats scored the next six points for a 57-49 advantage and went in front 63-52 on a Alec Millender layup with 5:42 remaining.
WSC never allowed MSU to make another comeback as the ‘Cats canned 22-of-26 free throws in the second half, many coming in the final five minutes.
Eagins led all scorers with 23 points, including 12-of-14 at the stripe. Janssen followed with 19 points while Millender and Jay Saunders also hit double figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively.
Wayne State won the rebounding battle over MSU 37-28 thanks to nine boards each by Janssen and Cody McCullough. Eagins had four steals for the ‘Cats while Ben Dentlinger notched three blocked shots.
On Friday evening, Wayne State used a 25-0 scoring run midway through the first half to overcome a shaky start in a 60-41 victory over Concordia-St. Paul.
The Wildcats got off to a slow start, making just 3 of their first 11 shots to open the contest as Concordia-St. Paul built an early 11-7 lead following an Ian Sluice 3-pointer with 12:50 to play in the first half.
Wayne State then scored the next 25 points of the contest and held the Golden Bears scoreless for a stretch of 8:27. In that time, the Wildcats turned a four-point deficit into a commanding 32-11 lead with 4:41 left in the half. WSC finished the first half making 17-of-33 shots after the slow start and held a 39-18 lead at intermission.
The Wildcats opened the second half scoring seven of the first nine points and took the first of several leads of 26 points in the second half at 46-20. Reserves controlled play the rest of the night as the Wildcats claimed the easy win.
Millender and Eagins led Wayne State in scoring with 14 points while Janssen contributed a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. With his 13 points, Janssen moved into 10th place on the all-time scoring list at Wayne State with 1,369 points, moving past Craig Phillip’s 1,368 points from 1994-98.
WSC won the rebounding battle over CSP 43-28 thanks to 10 boards from Janssen and seven by Cody McCullough.
The Wildcats (7-4, 4-1 NSIC) hit the road next weekend for the final pre-holiday weekend of games, traveling to Winona State Friday evening (5:30 p.m.) and Upper Iowa Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m.).
