Men's Basketball Win Comfortably at KCU

GRAYSON, Ky.- The men's basketball team blazed out to a big lead on Saturday and never looked back. The team played on the road against the Kentucky Christian University Knights in an Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) game.

The game started as Tennessee Wesleyan had planned on their agenda as the team scored the first 12 points of the game, leading 12-0 with 15:05 on the clock. The scoring continued for the Bulldogs as they led 19-1 with 13:37 in the first half. A mixture of scoring from each player in the starting five, Kobe Pride, Keshawn McPherson, Ty Hurst, and Jay Reed, helped the Bulldogs take their commanding lead. The points started coming in for Kentucky Christian, who cut the lead down to nine points with 7:26 remaining in the first half but TWU used five points from Young, a Pride layup, and McPherson three-pointer to push their lead back out to a comfortable margin, a 35-16 score. Another three-point basket by McPherson with 1:56 remaining in the first half gave the team their largest lead of the first 20 minutes, an advantage of 42-21. The team went into the hafltime break leading 42-26.

A layup in the opening minutes of the second half by Reed moved the Bulldogs ahead by 20 points again, making the score 48-28. A jump shot a few moments later by Pride pushed Tennessee Wesleyan to the 50-point mark, and a three-point play by Reed at the midway point of the second half gave the team 60 points, with the score reading 60-44. Moments later, Hurst converted the rare four-point play to move the lead back to 20 points, a 64-44 advantage. With 6:34 remaining in the game, the Bulldogs took their largest lead of the contest after back-to-back scores by Nichaune Jones and Emmanuel Ndambi made the score 68-44. A layup by Luke Burrows moved the team to the 70-point mark while points from Ty Runyan, Peyton West, Burrows, and Kariden Hardrick helped the team leave with a 81-68 win. This was the team's first road win of the season.

The starting five all finished in double figures, led by 13 points each from Reed and Keshawn McPherson. Pride and Hurst each had 12 points while Young added 10 points. Runyan had a career-high eight rebounds in leading the Bulldogs on the boards.

TWU (4-6, 4-5 AAC) play an exhibition road game against the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga on Sunday at 2:00. The next regular season game for the Bulldogs is set for Tuesday against Columbia International University. The road game is set to begin at 7:30 p.m.