DENVER - Westminster men's basketball (3-4, 1-0 RMAC) went on a 17-2 run in a five-minute stretch late in the second half and handed MSU Denver (6-1, 0-1 RMAC) its first loss of the season in an 81-66 win for the Griffins on Saturday afternoon in the Auraria Event Center.
Yusuf Mohamed had a third-straight 20-point game with 25 points and five rebounds while
Brayden Johnson (16),
Donaval Avila (12) and
Reme Torbert (10) also tallied double-digit points.
Lewis Johnson led the team with eight boards on the night including two on the offensive end as Westminster grabbed 11 total rebounds on the offensive glass to finish with a 15-6 edge in second-chance points.
Brayden Johnson had a team-high three offensive boards and he also went 8-of-10 shooting to help Westminster finish wih 38 points in the paint.
After a pedestrian 12-of-32 shooting (38 percent) in the first half, Westminster went 16-of-25 (64 percent) from the field as a team in the second half. It's their 48-point second half, the highest scoring half of the season so far for the Griffins, Westminster went 4-of-8 on three-pointers and added 12-of-13 shooting collectively at the free throw line. Westminster held the Roadrunners' leading scorer entering the night, Laolu Oke, to just eight points on 4-of-6 shooting with three turnovers.
MSU Denver went on a 12-4 run midway through the first to take the first double-digit lead of the game, going ahead, 23-13, at the 9:51 mark of the opening half. Westminster slowly crept back into the contest with defense and rebounding and took its first lead of the game on a
Brayden Johnson layup to go ahead, 31-29. The two sides finished the first half tied at 33-33 and the lead went on to trade hands several times in the opening minutes of the second half.
Westminster took the lead back for good on a fastbreak three-pointer from Mohamed with 9:47 to play which would begin a 17-2 run over the next five minutes and stretched its lead to as many as 15 in the final minutes to close out the Griffins' second-straight conference opening win over MSU Denver. With the win, Westminster's first win in Denver since 2017, the Griffins are now 6-1 all-time in conference openers since joining the RMAC and are 7-3 all-time against the Roadrunners.
The Griffins will be across town in Lakewood, Colo., tomorrow afternoon to play Colorado Christian beginning at 3 p.m.
All Westminster basketball games are available for FREE streaming on the RMAC Network. Viewers can watch live or on-demand online at rmacnetwork.com/Westminster or via the RMAC Network app, available on all major app stores.
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