ARDEN HILLS, Minn. – In a tightly contested Wednesday night MIAC contest the Bethel University men's basketball team was held in check by University of St. Thomas inside the Robertson Center, 86-75.
Strong second half shooting that saw St. Thomas go 14-of-27 (51.9 percent) from the field compared to Bethel's 16-of-34 (47.1 percent) dropped the Royals to 8-7 overall and 5-5 in conference play. BU looks to bounce back Saturday as they host Hamline. Tip-off is set for 3 p.m at the Robertson Center.Â
Junior guard
Granger Kingland put in 12 of his 17 points in the final 20 minutes. He completed the double-double effort with ten boards, all of which came on the defensive end. Senior guard
Matt Ambriz found the perfect touch behind the arc going 4-for-10 en route to scoring 17 points. Senior guard
Tyler Barker rounded out the Bethel top scorers with 10 points and matched a career-high eight assists.
UST (13-1, 9-0 MIAC) jumped out to an early 5-0 lead before the Royals found their stride stringing off five in a row. Ambriz started his hot streak from 3-point range hitting on back-to-back possessions to make it 17-13 with 12:23 left to go in the first.
The Tommies chipped away gaining back the lead at 22-21 before Ambriz knocked down his third 3-pointer of the half while being fouled on the way down. Ambriz knocked down the free throw to connect on the four-point play at the 7:28 mark as the Royals held a lead over the next six minutes
UST regained the lead with 1:32 remaining in the first with a layup from Anders Nelson and never looked back from there. Coming out of the break with a 38-35 lead the Tommies knocked down a pair of threes to open up the lead to nine.
Bethel pulled within one multiple times as Kingland knocked down his only 3-pointers of the night with under 10 minutes to play. In the bonus the final 6:32 of play, the Tommies knocked down 13-of1-4 from the charity stripe including eight straight from Nelson to secure the 86-75 victory.
Nelson and Connor Bair each finished with a game-high 21 points for UST.
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