Box Score Bolivar, Mo. - The Southwest Baptist Men's Basketball team had their best defensive performance of the year, in which they held Central Baptist to only 45 points and 27.9% shooting from the field. This lockdown defense carried the Bearcats to a 66-45 victory on Monday night. The win moves the SBU's record to 6-5 (1-2 MIAA) on the season. 

Southwest Baptist featured a balanced scoring attack in their win with Karim Mouliom and Matt Ridder sharing the high in points with 11 a piece. Mouliom made 50% (4-8) of his field goal attempts while Ridder cashed in 3 of his 4 bombs from deep. Damian Prgomet continued his stretch of strong play with 9 points, 8 rebounds, and a career high 4 blocks tonight. Cartier Dean added 7 points and 7 rebounds while Chris Rossow chipped in 6 points. From the field, SBU shot at a 38.0% (19-50) clip while converting 33.3% (7-21) of its three point attempts and 80.8% (21-26) of their free throws. Southwest Baptist dominated Central Baptist on the boards 45-32 and turned the Mustangs over 15 times. 

Both teams got off to a frigid start as the score was only 2-2 after first six minutes of action. At the 10:43 mark, Kai Woodfall hit a three to give SBU their first lead of the game at 10-7. Scoring would continue to be scarce with the score only being 14-13 SBU heading into the under 5 media timeout. Out of the media timeout, a free throw from Mouliom and a pair of threes from Ridder gave SBU some breathing space expanded the Bearcat lead to 21-14. With ten seconds remaining in the half, Darnell Latham Jr. hit a three that gave their SBU a double digit lead of 28-17 into the break.

Back to back layups from Rossow and Prgomet to begin the half provided Southwest Baptist with a 32-17 advantage. Central Baptist would cut that lead to 11 before Andy Campbell and Ridder nailed back to back threes to put SBU back up by 17, 42-25, with 12:56 left. Over the course of the next three minutes, Central Baptist would go on little 9-1 run to trim SBU's lead down to single digits at 43-34 with 9:25 left but that was as close as the Mustangs would come the rest of the way. By the 4:59 mark, SBU had used a 15-6 spurt to go up 58-40. SBU added free throws in the final minutes to come away with a 66-45 victory.   

Southwest Baptist will return to the floor after Christmas for a December 30th matchup with Ozark Christian College. Tipoff is scheduled to begin approximately at 3:30 PM from the Meyer Sports Center in Bolivar.