ROLLA - Missouri Science & Technology dominated the boards and used the 3-pointer to race away for a 74-56 victory over Drury in Great Lakes Valley Conference play Saturday afternoon at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.
Drury fell to 5-3 overall and 2-1 in the GLVC and saw its 21-game winning streak against the Miners (4-5, 3-0) snapped with the setback, the first for the Panthers in the series since 1996.
S&T broke open up a tight game with several second-chance buckets mixed in with five 3-pointers to charge out to a 39-24 hafltme lead, boosted by a 27-16 rebounding advantage that included 14 offensive boards against a DU front line that came into the contest short on numbers up front, with 6-8 junior
Nadir Alston and 6-6 freshman
Allen Hyatt out with injuries and 6-6 freshman
Douglas Moore returning to play for the first time for limited minutes after missing the previous three games due to injury.
But the Miners continued to hold court from there, thwarting any DU rallies with more rebounding dominance. S&T finished with a whopping 22 offensive rebounds in claiming a 47-31 advantage on the boards by game's end.
"Give S&T credit, first of all ... they were the more active and the more physical basketball team," Drury coach
Steve Hesser said. "We talked in preparation about the fact they were averaging 17 offensive rebounds per game, and they had 14 today at halftime. We've got to do a better job of coaching ... it's not something to drop your head and feel sorry for yourself. We've got to do a better job of coaching and they've got to do a better job of listening. We've got to figure some stuff out.
"Not only the rebounding, but our 18 turnovers to their nine. We better look ourselves in the mirror, because it doesn't get any easier from here. We need to make some adjustments ... we need to coach better, we need to play better, play tougher and play harder."
Kameron Bundy had 15 points and
Jamal Cummings added a career-high 11 points to go with four blocked shots to lead the Panthers.Â
B.J. McLaughlin had 19 points and Rokas Paulaskaus added 12 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Miners, who shot just 7-for-29 (24 percent) from 3-point range, but made big ones when needed to start a run or squelch a Drury rally. Desmond Buerge had 12 points and nine rebounds for S&T.Â
Drury will head to Las Vegas to play No. 6 Angelo State on Friday and No. 8 Tarleton State on Saturday in the South Point Holiday Hoops Classic.
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