The St. Cloud State Huskies used a big second half Saturday to earn a sweep over the University of Minnesota Crookston Men’s Basketball team with 78-59 in an NSIC game played on Gary Senske Court at Lysaker Gymnasium.
1st Half
The Huskies would take the early lead with the game’s first basket but Josh Dilling would answer with a three with 19:14 to go and the Golden Eagles wouldn’t trail again in the first half. The two teams traded baskets before the Huskies’ Caleb Donaldson hit a three to tie the game 14-14 with 12:11 left. The Golden Eagles retook the lead on a layup by Morgan Carter and he’d score the next eight points for the Golden Eagles who led by as many as five and as few as two points over the next 10-plus minutes. With 1:53 to go Anthony Roberts hit a three to make the score 32-30. Dilling would answer with back-to-back threes to give the Golden Eagles their largest lead at 38-30 with 37 seconds left in the half. Roberts would hit a free throw and Donaldson hit a layup as time expired to help the Huskies back within five at 38-33 at the break. “We were playing extremely well,” said Golden Eagles Coach Dan Weisse. “The ball was moving. We were boxing out and guarding the post extremely well. Then, in the second half, we didn’t do any of those things. The talk has been about playing for 40 minutes. 20 minutes isn’t going to cut it, and it certainly didn’t today.” The Golden Eagles shot a blistering 57.7% from the field and outrebounded St. Cloud 14-12 in the first half, one night after being outrebounded 49-34.
2nd Half
The Huskies would go on an 8-2 run to open the second half capped off by three straight layups by their postman Josh Tomasi to take their first lead since the opening minute with 18:05 to play. Georges Darwiche would give the Golden Eagles the lead back with a layup of his own before Tomasi responded with his fourth straight basket to give the Huskies the lead for good 43-42. The Huskies would score 14 of the next 17 points to take a 12 point lead when Ryan Bagley hit a right corner three with 12:28 to play. The lead continued to grow as the Huskies outrebounded and outplayed the Golden Eagles forcing them to commit several turnovers which coupled with missed shots helped St. Cloud extend their lead to a game-high 26 at 77-51 with 3:37 to play. “The second half we didn’t shoot the ball as well and didn’t get as good of looks,” said Weisse. “They turned the pressure on, taking away passing angles, and deny passing lanes. We just took the first somewhat good shot, where in the first half we really got a good shot. We forced some stuff and played into their hands as far as the tempo. The second half was a little higher than we were comfortable with and that showed.” Following a basket by Ibu Jassey-Demba to make it 77-53 both teams would empty their benches with 2:31 to play. Chandler Reeck would go 1-2 at the free-throw line, while Silas Xia, and Jaylen James both hit shots off the bench in the closing minutes of the 78-59 loss. “Those guys deserve the time, they are there every day,” said Weisse. “I don’t think people understand how important the guys are who give you a scout team look and aren’t in the box score every day. Unfortunately, the game went how it went, so we had to get them in that way, but it was good to reward them with some playing time and a couple of them made some plays. It was good to see that.”
The Golden Eagles fall to 2-12, 1-11 in the NSIC and will travel to Bemidji State for the final weekend of the season February 19-20. St. Cloud State improves to 7-7, 5-5 in the NSIC and clinches a trip to the NSIC tournament. They’ll host the University of Minnesota-Duluth for a pair of games to wrap up the regular season next weekend.
| 1 | 2 | Score | |
| St. Cloud State | 33 | 45 | 78 |
| Minnesota Crookston | 38 | 21 | 59 |
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