St. Louis, Mo. – The Bearcats won their fifth straight Thursday evening, defeating the Maryville Saints 70-54. SBU improves to 11-2 on the year as Maryville drops to 5-9.
 
Brady Smith had the team's first two buckets of the game, giving the team an early 4-2 lead. The Saints then took an 8-4 lead, but Joe Miller completed the and-one play and Ricky Crawford Jr. nailed back-to-back threes to take over once again. The Saints tied it up at 15 each mid-way through the first, but the Bearcats began to push ahead. Late in the first half, Brady Smith hit a big three to give SBU their first double digit lead. As the teams went to the locker room for halftime, the score read 36-29 in favor of SBU.
 
The second half opened with a barrage of threes for the Bearcats. Seven of SBU's first eight field goals were three pointers. Quinn Nelson made five of those, Brady Smith and Jalil Beaubrun made the other two. Thanks to those big shots, SBU built their lead to 60-38 with 10:58 left in the game. The Bearcats maintained a 20+ point lead until there was just over two minutes left on the clock. Tyler Williams and one of Maryville's players exchanged threes just before the end of regulation, ending with a 70-54 final.
 
Quinn Nelson continued to impress, leading both teams with 18 points and dishing 4 assists. Joe Miller was close to a double-double, scoring 13 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. SBU's defense held strong once again, holding the Saints to 19-55 (34.5%) shooting from the field and 5-20 (25.0%) from three.
 
SBU will stay around the St. Louis area, as their next contest is at Lindenwood on Saturday, January 30 at 3 PM.