KANSAS CITY -
Drake Patterson and
Cameron Adams scored 17 points each to lead four Panthers in double-figures as Drury rolled past Rockhurst 74-50 in a Great Lakes Valley Conference matchup Thursday night at Mason-Halpin Fieldhouse.
DaShaun Stark added a career-high 12 points - including a 4-for-4 effort from 3-point range - and
Kameron Bundy also had 12 as the Panthers improved to 10-4 overall and 4-2 in the GLVC.
Rockhurst fell to 4-10 overall and 0-6 in the league.
Bouncing back from a tough 62-58 home loss on Saturday to No. 6 Bellarmine that snapped a 32-game winning streak at The O', the Panthers scored the game's first nine points and went to claim a 33-21 lead by the halftime break.
Leading 39-27 with 17:30 left, the Panthers went on a 12-2 run to push the lead to 51-29, and Rockhurst never threatened from there.
Stark (4 of 4) and Patterson (5 of 8) - on his final two-game swing through his hometown KC area - combined to make 9 of 12 3-pointers to lead the Panthers to 10 treys, matching a season high.
"Those two have really been spending some time on their shooting," Drury coach
Steve Hesser said. "DaShaun hadn't been getting rewarded in these recent games, while Drake has been, and they put a lot of shots up over their Christmas break. It was nice to see DaShaun rewarded for it tonight."
The only damper on the victory came with just over 11 minutes remaining in the contest, when senior forward
Mike Nwelue went down under the basket after a hard foul while trying to score. After a couple of minutes, he was helped to the bench by teammates with an apparent leg injury.
"I hope Mike's OK ... my information I have right now is a sprained knee with a little bit of a sprained ankle," Hesser said on his post-game radio show. "So obviously we'll see how he feels tomorrow, but we need Mike to help us."
Russell Burns had 12 points to lead the Hawks, who committed 19 turnovers to just 12 by the Panthers.
Drury shot 55 percent from the field (28 of 51) - including 48 percent from 3-point range (10 of 21) - while limiting the Hawks to 33 percent (16 of 49) overall.
The Panthers had 20 assists on 28 field goals, and claimed a 36-28 rebounding advantage, led by seven boards from Adams and six by Nwelue in his 15 minutes of court time before the injury.
"We did some nice things," Hesser said. "The 20 assists on 28 baskets ... we made some shots early and got the ball in some good spots. We're getting better ... we lost (at home to Bellarmine) Saturday, and it's over and disappointing. But I want to say something to our fans about that ... how special that is, that in parts of three different seasons, we didn't lose at home. That's pretty cool, and that's a credit to our players and our very, very loyal fans and them showing up and cheering us on in good weather and bad weather.
"I thought we were more collective tonight, and that's obvious by the 20 assists. We were since with instruction, and that's very, very important, too. I really liked where we were with our heads tonight. We need to build on this, and not sit around and pat ourselves on the back."
The Panthers continue the second leg of a four-game GLVC road swing by playing at William Jewell on Saturday, with a 3:15 p.m. tipoff in Liberty.
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