Dec. 18, 2015
Men's Basketball Trounce Kermodes 107-60
Six players scored in double figures as the Central Washington University men's basketball team cruised to a 47-point win over Quest University by a score of 107-60.
The Wildcats (5-2) were paced by Joseph Stroud and Gary Jacobs who scored 24 and 21 points, respectively. Jacobs added six assists and seven rebounds, and made 8 of his 12 shots.
Devin Matthews and Joey Roppo each added 14, while Naim Ladd and Jerome Bryant joined in with 11 and 10 points, respectively.
The Wildcats shot 58.7-percent from the field, including 42.1-percent from three-point (8 of 19). The majority of the Wildcats shots came from near the rim scoring 50 points in the paint en route to their 47-point victory.
"I think it is big for our guy's confidence to win the way we did tonight," CWU Head Coach Greg Sparling said. "We came out of Alaska with our confidence shaken a little bit. We came back from that trip and devoted the majority of our practices on our defense and I think that showed tonight."
The CWU defense forced the Kermodes into 19 turnovers and turned the miscues into 20 points. Quest University shot just 35.7-percent form the field and made only 3 of their 14 shots from long range. The Wildcats defense was particularly good in the first half where they led from start to finish, and held the Kermodes under 10 points for nearly seven minutes, taking a 50-24 lead at halftime.
"Defensively we played very well tonight and played as a unit," Spar added. "On nights like tonight sometimes players will start taking quick shots and playing selfish basketball on each end of the court, but tonight the guys stayed focused."
Central Washington led by as many as 56 points in the second half and consistently poured in points scoring on 20 of its 32 shot attempts in the stanza.
All of CWU's bench scoring came from the trio of Ladd, Bryant, and Desmond Ross, totaling 30 points on the night. Ross made each of his three shot attempts in the contest, all of which were three-pointers.
"Our biggest thing tonight was to give a bunch of guys quality minutes throughout the game," Sparling said. "Ladd and Bryant were great for us off the bench, and Ross was lights out from three. We are going to need efforts like that as we move back into conference games, especially against a tough Western Oregon club."
This game marked the end of the Wildcats non-conference schedule and CWU will once again enter Great Northwest Athletic Conference play when they play host to No. 3 Western Oregon University on Dec. 31 at 4:30 p.m.