BEMIDJI, Minn. – The Southwest Minnesota State men's basketball moved back into the win column on Friday night with a dominating 85-55 victory over Bemidji State inside the BSU Gymnasium.
SMSU scored the first 10 points of the game and never looked back in improving to 9-4 overall, 7-2 NSIC. BSU suffered its third straight loss and drops to 6-8 overall, 3-6 NSIC.
Mason Lund led the Mustangs with a career-high 21 points on 7 of 11 shooting with five 3-pointers.
Jakob Braaten added 12 points on 6 of 9 shooting while pulling down a team-high seven rebounds with
Micah Schlaak chipping in with 11 points.
Aeron Stevens, who missed last Saturday's game with an injury, hit two 3-pointers to open the game and finished with eight points, five rebounds, two steals and two assists.
Brayson Boike made a pair of 3-pointers and closed the game with nine points.
Isaiah Schafer and
Landon Pokorski each finished with six points, while Pokorski closed with a game-high five assists.
SMSU finished the night shooting 54 percent (31 of 57) including 13 of 26 from 3-point land. The Mustangs, after committing a season-high 17 turnovers last Saturday, committed just seven on Friday night.
BSU, which entered the game averaging 84 points per game, closed the night shooting 35 percent from the field. Henry Shannon paced the Beavers with 28 points and 20 rebounds.
SMSU maintained a 13-6 advantage with 13 minutes left in the first half before ripping off a 12-0 run over a nearly four-minute stretch to extend the lead to 25-6 at the 8:48 mark following the second of back-to-back field goals by
Jakob Braaten.
Following a field goal by BSU, the Mustangs answered with 10 straight points to make the score 35-8 with six minutes left in the half. SMSU would continue to dominate and eventually push the margin to 47-16 at halftime.
SMSU shot at a 55 percent clip in the opening half while limiting BSU to 22 percent shooting. It was the first time SMSU limited a team to less than 20 points in one half since Northern State scored 18 in last season's regular season finale.
BSU shot much better in the final 20 minutes, making 14 of 31 field goals in outscoring SMSU 39-38.
SMSU continues the weekend road trip on Saturday with a 3:30 p.m. tip-off at Minnesota Duluth.
