MEMPHIS, Tenn. --- The Mississippi College men's basketball team outscored Christian Brothers 49-39 in the second half, but it was not enough in an 81-77 loss on Thursday night in Canale Arena.
The Choctaws fell to 4-9 on the season with a 1-7 Gulf South Conference mark. The Bucs improved to 11-6 with a 6-3 mark in the league.
TURNING POINT
Following a Joe Laravie three-pointer with 15:32 remaining in the game, CBU grabbed a 53-37 lead over the Choctaws, their largest of the night. MC would answer with an 11-0 run over the next three minutes that would keep them hanging around the rest of the second half.
KEY STATS
The Choctaws had their second-best shooting night of the season, going 30-of-57 (53%) from the floor, while the Bucs also went 30-of-57 from the field.
Junior
Brandon Boston tallied his second double-double of the season with 16 points and a team-high 10 rebounds.
Senior
Marcus Lytle led the scoring charge for MC with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting.
Freshman
Jacob Taylor scored a career-high 14 in the loss, while junior
Tre Jenkins poured in 12 and sophomore
Dyllan Taylor scored 11 to put all five starters in double-figures for MC.
The Choctaws went 8-of-19 from the three-point line, led by Jenkins with four made long balls and
Jacob Taylor with three.
Laravie led all scorers with 30 points, while Adam Dieball scored 21.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Boston and Lytle scored a pair of buckets to open the game and gave the Choctaws a 4-0 lead out of the gate.
Senior
Howard Thomas would get in on the early action and his layup made the score 8-5 with 16:30 remaining in the opening 20 minutes.
CBU responded with a 13-0 run and they would not trail the rest of the night.
Mitchell Mays would hit a three-pointer for the Bucs in the final seconds and they would take a 42-28 advantage into the halftime break.
The second half would see them push the lead out to as many as 16 in the opening minutes, but the 11-0 run by the Choctaws got them right back into the contest.
CBU would score five straight to extend the lead back to 10, but MC would not let them get away as a layup from
Brandon Boston with 9:46 remaining cut the lead down to 60-54.
MC would cut the lead down to six on a few occasions, but the Bucs would not let them get any closer until
Dyllan Taylor hit a three-pointer in the final seconds to give the game its final score of 81-77.
GAME NOTES
The Bucs grabbed their second win over the Choctaws this season, but Thursday night was much tighter than the 82-57 defeat they suffered in Clinton on December 17th.
CBU is now 10-5 all-time against MC, including winning all nine meetings since the Choctaws re-joined the GSC prior to the 2014-15 season. The Bucs are the only team left in the league that MC has yet to defeat since returning.
NEXT UP
The Choctaws will be back in action on Saturday when they travel to Jackson, Tenn. to face Union (TN) at 4:00 p.m. in Fred Delay Gymnasium.
Mississippi College is a private Christian university located in Clinton, Mississippi with an enrollment of over 5,000 students. MC recently finished their transition process back to NCAA Division II and the Gulf South Conference and will be competing for conference and national championships in the 2016-17 academic year.
The athletic department sponsors 17 intercollegiate athletic programs: Baseball, Men's and Women's Basketball, Men's and Women's Cross Country, Football, Golf, Men's and Women's Soccer, Softball, Men's and Women's Tennis, Men's and Women's Indoor Track & Field, Men's and Women's Outdoor Track & Field and Volleyball.
For more information on Mississippi College athletics, please contact
David Nichols at 601-925-3234 or
nichols@mc.edu.
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