Box Score BARTLESVILLE, OKLA. – The No. 1 East Central University men's basketball team picked up a 96-73 victory over No. 8 Henderson State to move on to the semifinals of the Great American Conference Championship Tournament.
Photo Gallery I
Post-Game Press Conference
The Tigers (22-7) saw a total of four players record double-digit point totals, being led by junior
Brett Cannon with a career-best 23 points, six rebounds and seven assists. Senior
Braxton Reeves added 22 points, five boards and eight assists. Seniors
Donovan Halsel and
KD Moore then added 17 and 10 points, respectively.
Along the way, Reeves continued his record setting season becoming the GAC single season scoring leader, with 647 points. The old record was set in the 2011-12 season by Johnnie Davis from Arkansas Tech (634).
ECU jumped out to an early 8-0 advantage, holding the Reddies (16-13) scoreless in the first two minutes of play. The Tigers kept pushing and had the lead out to as many as nine, before a 7-2 run by HSU cut the deficit to four (18-14), with 12:45 left in the stanza.
The teams then kept trading runs through the stanza, with ECU pushing the lead out to as many as 10 and then seeing the Reddies fight back within four. However, the Tigers never let go of the lead and went into the locker room with a 46-40 advantage.
The battle continued into the second half, where after the first four minutes, the Reddies cut the disadvantage to just two over the next 3:30 (56-54). While the teams traded shots again for the next minute, the second half of the stanza is where ECU really took off.
With 11 minutes left, the Tigers started a 14-4 run to push the lead back to double-digits, with seven minutes left. ECU never looked back and increased the lead out to as many as 23 on the way to the 96-73 victory.
The Tigers claimed the win on strong overall play, shooting 60.7 percent from the field and 42. 1 percent from three-point range. ECU was also strong on defense, holding the Reddies to a 39.1 overall shooting percentage and a 15.4 percent mark from beyond the arc.
The other key difference in the game was on ball control, where ECU recorded 22 assists and just nine turnovers, while HSU netted just six assists and garnered 10 turnovers.
The Tigers will now have to wait to find out their opponent in the semifinals until Friday night after the game between Southern Nazarene and Ouachita at 5:45 p.m.
