The University of Minnesota Crookston Men’s basketball team topped Bethel University 85-77 in the Golden Eagles lone exhibition game played at Lysaker Gymnasium in Crookston.
Malcolm Cohen (R-Sr., Detroit, MI) opened the scoring with a jump shot just outside the paint, giving the Golden Eagles a 2-0 lead. UMC’s hot shooting continued with a Brian Sitzmann (R-Soph., Savage) three-pointer boosting UMC’s advantage to 5-2. Cohen followed with a triple of his own to make it 8-3. The Golden Eagles continued pulling ahead with three-pointers from Harrison Cleary (Sr., Oak Creek, WI) and Malcolm Cohen on back-to-back possesions giving Minnesota Crookston a 21-12 lead. The Golden Eagles offense continued to roll in the first half, leading by as many as 22 points in the first half before closing the first half with a 51-31 lead. “I think our spacing, our movement, our energy,” explained UMC head coach Dan Weisse of his team’s strong first-half. “The shots were falling, that always helps a little bit. I thought our defense was solid. Overall, the first half there were certainly a lot of positives to take away from that, but I also wanted to see us handle the controllable better in the second half when they made their run.”
Bethel proved resilient and showed plenty of fight in the second half. Things started well for Minnesota Crookston in the second half with Malcolm Cohen sinking another three-pointer, putting the Golden Eagles in front 56-33. Trailing 67-44 with 13:37 to play, the Royals began their comeback. A quick 5-0 run trimmed Bethel’s deficit down to 67-49. After the Golden Eagles returned most of their starters to the floor, the Royals continued to trim their deficit pulling within 81-75 with 0:26 to play. “We subbed a little bit in there,” noted Weisse. “We wanted to get looks at different guys. I also didn’t think we handled things well defensively. We gave up too many easy dribble penetrations. When you can’t score you’ve got to get stops and we didn’t get stops.” Javier Nicolau (Sr., Castellon, Spain) ended any further hopes for a comeback slamming a two-hand dunk after Minnesota Crookston broke the full-court press reestablishing an 8 point lead for UMC as the Golden Eagles hung on for an 85-77 win. “Overall, I’m very pleased with things, but there’s certainly things situationally, we’ve got to button things up. That was a little bit too close at the end for our taste, but Bethel is a good team and we’ve just got to play better at the end of games.”
UMC opens up the regular season on Friday, November 8, in St. Joseph, Missouri against defending national champion Northwest Missouri State at 3:30 P.M. on KROX.
| Box Score | 1 | 2 | Final |
| Bethel | 31 | 46 | 77 |
| UMC | 51 | 34 | 85 |
| UMC | Points | Rebounds | Assists/Steals |
| Malcolm Cohen | 27 | 3 | |
| Harrison Cleary | 22 | 4 | 5 assists/3 steals |
| Brian Sitzman | 11 | 4 | 3 assists |
| Ben Juhl | 8 | ||
| Javier Nicolau | 7 | 4 | |
| Ibu Jassey Demba | 4 | 3 | |
| Reed Miller | 3 | 5 | |
| Chase Johnson | 2 | 5 | 3 assists/2 blocks |
| Quintin Winterfeldt | 1 |
