Box Score

MARSHALL, Minn. – The Southwest Minnesota State men's basketball team opened its home season on Thursday night with a 73-61 non-conference victory over Mayville State inside the R/A Facility.
 
SMSU, which snapped a three-game losing streak with the win, improves to 2-3 overall. Tonight's game was an exhibition game for the NAIA Division II Comets, which are 5-2 overall. Mayville State has qualified for the NAIA Division II Tournament the past two seasons.
 
SMSU used a balanced scoring attack tonight with redshirt freshman Kaden Evans scoring a team-high 13 points in his first career game. Evans, who missed the first four games of the season due to injury, connected on 5 of 9 shots with three 3-pointers. True freshman Cliff McCray added 12 points and a team-high six rebounds, while also recording three steals. Kenny Byers also reached double figures for the Mustangs with 10 points, four rebounds and three steals.
 
Nick Dufault added nine points for the Mustangs, while Weston Baker Magrath and Brian Dayman each added eight points. Baker Magrath also finished with five rebounds and four blocked shots.
 
The Mustangs shot 67 percent in the opening half, but cooled to 36 percent shooting in the second half, to finish the game at 51 percent (31 of 61). SMSU made seven of 23 3-pointers and were a perfect 4 of 4 from the free throw line.
 
Mayville State finished the game shooting 40 percent (21 of 53) from the field, including 9 of 21 from 3-point range. The Comets held a 34-29 rebound advantage, but committed 17 turnovers.
 
SMSU started the game strong jumping out to an 18-7 lead in the first seven and a half minutes following a layup by McCray. The lead later moved to 30-13 with eight minutes remaining in the half after a jumper by Evans.
 
The Comets battled back and trimmed the deficit to 33-23 with just over five minutes left, but the Mustangs countered with another run, closing the half on an 11-2 run, capped by a Dufault jumper to take a 47-28 lead into halftime.
 
SMSU would take its largest lead of the game at 50-28 following a three-point play by Grant Kramer to start the second half and the advantage never dipped below 12 points the remainder of the game.
 
Southwest Minnesota State continues non-conference play on Friday night hosting Minnesota Morris at 7 p.m.