St. Cloud, Minn. -- The Missouri Southern men's basketball team saw ten new players and five new starters play in a road game to start the season and the Lions took out host St. Cloud State 82-71 in the opener of the 2016 MIAA/NSIC Challenge.
Southern (1-0) got 25 points from
CJ Carr as the point guard played 38 minutes and went 7-18 from the field, 4-8 from long range and 7-9 from the free throw line. Carr added seven rebounds and 12 assists, just three rebounds and three steals from a quadruple-double in his first game as a Lion.
JJ Cratit scored 16 points on 4-11 shooting (all three pointers) as he went 4-7 from long-range with three assists, while
Elyjah Clark went 3- from long range with 15 points and six rebounds.
Lawrence Brown had eight points and ten rebounds, while
Vince Fritz had nine points off the bench.
SCSU (0-4) was led by 15 points from Gage Davis.
The Lions quickly opened up a 15-6 lead after a three from Cratit with 15:14 left in the first half. The lead was nine again (21-12) after a three from Fritz with 12 to go, but a layup from the Huskies' Kurt Hall with 5:22 to go cut the lead to two (29-27). A pair of freebies from Carr brought the lead back to six, but a jumper from SCSU's Mark Hall with 1:13 to go gave the Huskies a two-point lead (37-35). Carr hit a jumper with 57 seconds to tie the score at the break.
Both teams traded points to start the second half, but a layup from
LJ Ross with 13:30 to go gave Southern a 50-49 lead. The Huskies held a four-point lead (60-56) with eight minutes to go, but the Lions went to work and turned a four-point deficit into a 12-point lead after a three from Cratit capped an 18-4 run with 3:19 to go.
Southern would never relinquish the lead at that point.
The Lions shot 42 percent from the field and 50 percent from long-range, making 73 percent of their free-throws.
Southern will be back in action tomorrow afternoon as the Lions face off with 17th ranked Minnesota State.
