Cougars' Sharp Shooting Downs Lions

EDWARDSVILLE – SIUE men's basketball established a new Division I school record, raining down 15 three-pointers Thursday in a 78-59 win on the road at Lindenwood.

The Cougars have won three straight games and improved to 11-8 overall and 4-2 in the Ohio Valley Conference. Lindenwood fell to 7-11 overall and 1-4 in the league.

"We shared the ball, we played the right kind of basketball," SIUE Head Coach Brian Barone said.

Seven different players connected from long-range and SIUE finished one shy of the overall school record for triples. The Cougars were 15-30 from long range, including 9-15 in the first half. The 15 three-pointers were the most in a game since December of 2013 when they went 15-23 against Robert Morris of Springfield.

"There was one little segment where we were feeling like the ball was going in and we missed a couple of bad ones," Barone said. "But we took the right ones a lot tonight. When you're 15-30 from three, that's the product of a lot of hard work."

Lindenwood led 9-8 before the Cougars went on a 13-0 run to take the lead for good. SIUE led 40-24 at the break. The Cougars pushed their lead to as many as 25 when a Jordan Pickett jumper made it 74-49 with 3:07 to play in the game.

In all three players scored in double figures, with Damarco Minor leading the way with 17 points. He was 6-12 overall and 4-5 from three-point territory. Lamar Wright scored 15 points and grabbed a season-high eight rebounds to lead the Cougars. Ray'Sean Taylor scored 12 points and 4-7 from three-point range. Taylor moved into 10^th place on SIUE's career scoring list and now has 1,115 career points.

Eddiean Tirado knocked down three three-pointers and finished with nine points in 17 minutes off the bench. Shamar Wright and Desmond Polk each scored seven points.

"It was a total team effort offensively," Barone said. "Eddie came in and gave us a big-time spark. It was team basketball tonight with 13 assists and six turnovers."

The Cougars limited Lindenwood to just 36 percent from the field and 3-15 from three-point range. Kennan Cole and Darius Beane, who average a combined 32 points, scored 14 and nine, respectively.

'That was big for us to limit their production," Barone said. "They weren't comfortable. You could tell our guys were focused.

"We assisted ourselves on defense all night," Barone continued. "We were in good gap help. We played the right way. We implemented our game plan the right way. (Assistant Coach) Angres Thorpe's scout was tremendous. We give (our guys) that information and they went out and executed."

SIUE will look to make it four in a row when they travel to Southeast Missouri for a Saturday afternoon matchup.

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