Dubuque, IA — This afternoon, the North Central men's basketball team would suit up to play in their opening game of the NCCAA North Region Tournament against the #9 ranked Maranatha Baptist Sabercats (MBU). Coming off an exciting OT victory in their opening round of play last night, MBU had hopes of rallying off this momentum to cause a stunning upset over the #1 ranked NCU. However, the Rams came to play, splashing 18 total threes and shooting it at an outstanding 58% from behind the arc to cruise to the easy victory, 97-52.
Micah Filer, who recently got awarded 1st-Team All UMAC honors, would open up the scoring for the Rams with a signature mid-range jumper. Able to force some early turnover, MBU would keep things interesting through the first 5 minutes of action. It wasn't long before NCU would catch fire from deep. North Centrals sharpshooting guards
Filer and
Tanner Holtman hit back-to-back threes at the 14-minute mark to get the Rams rolling offensively. The lead would stretch to 20 before Maranatha would call its first timeout at 7:29 left in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Out of the huddle, the Sabercats seemed to have recouped as they would cash in on a 3-pointer from deep on the following possession. However, the Blue and Gold would put together an 8-0 in a span of just 120 seconds, bringing the score to 34-9. MBU would elevate their play in the final quarter of the first half, able to almost match the scoring output of the Rams in that stretch.
Filer would post an impressive first-half display with 16 points on 7-9 (78%) shooting from the floor. When the halftime buzzer sounded, NCU would hold a comfortable 50-21 lead.
Out of the break, Maranatha Baptist would need to change something up in order to slow down the Rams and try to light a spark for themselves. Unfortunately for the underdogs, NCU had no intentions of taking its foot off the gas. North Central's starting 5 would tack on another 5 made threes before heading to the bench to rest for the long weekend ahead of them. Upon checking in, junior forward
Jonathan Thompson would get active putting up 6 points and 2 rebounds in his 6-minute stint of action. With 10:12 to go, Coach
Jeremy Becker would make one more wave of substitutions. Freshman guards
Carrington McNeal and
Tyler VanEtten both took advantage of their opportunity to shine.
McNeal recorded 9 points and 3 rebounds in his 10 minutes of play and
VanEtten tallied 8 points and 3 rebounds in just 9 minutes of action. Advancing to the semi-final round, NCU would take this one in dominating fashion, with a final score of 97-52.
Click here to see today's live
STATS.
Top Performers:
Looking Ahead:
Advancing to the next round of the North Region Tournament, the men will square off with Trinity Bible in a semifinal contest tomorrow (3/3) starting at 3pm!
All fans are encouraged to tune into the official Rams
Instagram,
Facebook, and
Twitter pages for all your up-to-date basketball information and news.
