Box Score

Competing in its first-ever Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference playoff contest, in the first year in which the squad was eligible to compete in the GLIAC postseason, the Malone University men's basketball team, seeded #8 in the eight-team event, travelled to top-seeded Lake Superior State University (MI) on Wednesday evening and came away with the upset victory by the score of 73-65.

The Pioneers, who never trailed in the contest, had the #21 nationally-ranked Lakers on their heels right from the start as Malone jumped out to an 11-4 lead with 12 minutes left in the half.  The visitors would again hold a seven-point lead, at 23-16 with 7:54 left in the stanza, before putting together an outstanding seven-minute stretch of play to close out the first 20 minutes of action.  During that final stint of the opening half, Malone proceeded to outscore the hosts 18-7 and send the rattled Lakers into the locker room at halftime trailing by the improbable margin of 41-23 on their home floor.

Malone posted an outstanding defensive effort in the first half, holding LSSU to an 8-of-27 (29.6%) effort from the floor, while notching an impressive 17-of-29 effort (58.6%) from the field themselves.

In the second half, Malone was able to hold off the inevitable LSSU rally for the first 14 minutes as the Pioneers still held a 13-point, 60-47 lead with only 6:22 left.  But the host Lakers then ripped off eight straight points to cut the deficit to just five points, at 60-55, with just 3:11 remaining.  That would be as close as LSSU would get, though, as Malone kept the hosts just off balance enough to post the historic first-ever Malone men's basketball GLIAC postseason win by the eight-point 73-65 final margin of victory.

In an impressive 28 minutes of action coming off the bench, center Daniel Wise poured in a career-high and team-best 23 points on an impressive 8-for-10 shooting effort while also converting seven of nine at the foul line. Wise also paced the Pioneers in rebounds as he snared a game-high nine boards.

Point guard Isiah Elliott was close behind in the scoring column with 18 points while also dishing out a team-high five assists.  In addition, with his 18-point effort, Elliott became just the 17th player in Malone men's basketball history to eclipse the 1500-point barrier.  He now stands at 1511 points.

Guard Che Richardson tallied nine points and five rebounds while guard Christian Graves collected eight points, three rebounds and a team-best four steals.  In addition, forward Cory Veldhuizen posted seven points, six rebounds and four assists.

Lake Superior State was led by Derek Billing who racked up a game-high 31 points while Cameron Metz followed with 16 points. Jake Blake led the Lakers in rebounds with 10.

For the game, Malone netted 27 of 56 shots from the field for 48.2% while LSSU made 23 of 58 for 39.7%. Neither team fared well from long range as the Pioneers connected on four of 15 for 26.7% while the Lakers sank five of 17 for 29.4%.  At the line, Malone converted 15 of 20 for 75% as the hosts had the slightly better percentage at 87.5% (14 of 16) but with one less made charity toss.  In addition, the Lakers held a slim 36-33 rebounding advantage.

With the win, Malone improved to 15-12 overall while Lake Superior State, in suffering only its fifth loss of the season, closed out the year with an impressive 26-5 mark.

Malone now advances on to the GLIAC semifinals and will face #4 seed Michigan Tech University (20-6), who defeated #5 Grand Valley State University (MI) 78-72 in quarterfinal action.  The semifinals and finals will be held at the site of the highest remaining seed after the quarterfinals, #2 seed University of Findlay, on Sat., March 8th and Sun., March 9th.  Saturday's semifinal game times will be announced tomorrow.  Live stats and other coverage of the Malone vs. Michigan Tech game will also be announced by tomorrow.

GLIAC Tournament webpage and bracket