Bolivar, Mo. – The Missouri Southern men's basketball team led from start to finish tonight as the Lions took care of Southwest Baptist, 80-70, winning inside the Meyer Sports Center in Bolivar.
 
Southern (15-11, 12-8 MIAA) wins for the third time in a row at SBU. Taevaunn Prince led the way with 27 points and a career-high 18 rebounds on the night, making 11-13 from the free throw line. Prince now has 1,207 points and 244 made free throws on the season, needing just nine more to break the MIAA single-season mark of 252 held by Central Missouri's Armando Becker done back in the 90-91 season.
 
Charlie Brown scored 14 points, while Taylor Luster added ten. Austin Wright had nine points on three made three-pointers, but his first bucket of the night gave him 1,000 points in his career, making him the 20^th player in MSSU history to join the 1,000 point club. Prince joined earlier this season.
 
SBU (10-15, 5-14 MIAA) had three score in double-figures, led by 17 points from Cartier Dean.
 
Southern opened the game on a 9-0 run as a pair of buckets from Prince, a three from Wright and another bucket from Luster gave the Lions a nine-point lead with 17:36 left in the first. Another layup from Prince, this one with 16:15 left made the score 11-3, Lions.
 
A pair of free throws from Blaine Miller gave the Lions a ten-point lead (17-7) with just under 11 minutes left. After the Bearcats had cut the lead to just five (24-19), the Lions went on a 5-0 run to go back up by ten with four minutes to go after Wright's second three-pointer of the half. A three from Brown made the lead 36-23 with 1:50 to go and the Lions led 39-26 going into the break.
 
Wright started the second half with his third three-pointer of the night and the lead was 18 (44-26) after a pair of Brown freebies with 18:17 left. The Lions led by 17 three times, the second time 52-35 after a layup from Prince with 14:51 to go and a three-point play from Isaac Kreuer with 9:33 left made the score 62-44 with 9:33 to go.
 
SBU cut the lead to nine (67-58) after a three from Brian Patterson with 5:46 to go, but a three from Miller with 3:13 to go pushed the lead back to 76-58, capping a 9-0 run for the Lions. SBU would get to within ten as time expired.
 
The Lions shot 42 percent from the field and 47 percent from long-range, making 80 percent of their free throws. Southern limited SBU to just 35 percent on the night from the field, as the Bearcats came into the game averaging 45 percent from the field.
 
Southern had a 30-16 advantage in the paint and scored 15 points off of nine SBU turnovers.
 
The Lions will be back in action this Saturday with a game at Central Missouri. Tip off from the Multipurpose Building is slated for 3:30 pm.