Men's Basketball Cruises to 90-69 Win Over Salem

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- The Bridgewater State University men's basketball team had a successful opening to the second half of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference season.

The Bears are riding their first three-game winning streak of the season after leading from start to finish and posting a 90-69 victory over Salem State University Saturday afternoon at the Tinsley Center.

BSU is in a three-way tie for second place in the MASCAC with Westfield State University and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts at 5-2, right behind Worcester State University (5-1).

The Bears (9-10 overall) have bounced back from consecutive losses to MCLA and Worcester State on Jan. 10 and 13 to get in the thick of things in the conference heading down the stretch.

"Guys are just focused," said coach Matt McLaughlin. 'They're starting to understand the importance of each game and realizing, hey, this is the second round.

"If we want to make a run, if we want to put it all together, we've got to make sure  we continue that forward progression we've been showing over the past few weeks."

Precious Okoh (Brockton, Mass.) led BSU with 20 points, hitting four 3-pointers, to go with four assists and two steals.

Freshman Zach Taylor (Quincy, Mass.) scored 17 points on 7-for-9 shooting and Dante Kikuba (Framingham, Mass.) contributed 11 points with three 3-pointers and added six assists.

Louis Jennings (Walpole, Mass.) scored nine points to go with seven rebounds and two steals while freshman Josh Campbell (Plymouth, Mass.) scored nine points and Emerson Halbleib (Carmel, Ind.) pulled down ten rebounds, dished out five assists and blocked a pair of shots.

Salem State's LJ Hicks (Gardner, Mass.) had 18 points and seven rebounds while Michael Makiej (Andover, Mass.) added 13 points and Wil Martinez (Revere, Mass.) added 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Makiej is now 23 points shy of 1,000 for his collegiate career.

The Bears bolted to a 19-4 lead in the first 6:05 with Kikuba getting eight of the points. BSU solved the Salem State zone defense and had the offense flowing.

"It's always tough to play them because they're the only team that goes zone all game long," said McLaughlin. "You've got to plan differently and prepare differently because it's all zone."

After trailing, 5-4, Salem State (9-8, 3-3 MASCAC) missed its next 10 shots to face the early 15-point deficit.

The closest the Vikings got the rest of the half was 22-11, but the Bears shot 62 percent from the field and took a 53-31 lead into the locker room at the break.

Taylor (13) and Okoh (10) combined for 23 of BSU's first-half points, and the Bears had 13 points off nine Salem State turnovers.

The closest the Vikings got in the second half was 58-42 with 12:12 remaining on a three-point play by Makiej, but 3-pointers by Kikuba and Okoh and two baskets by Justin Parsons (Portsmouth, R.I.) put BSU up, 68-47, with less than 10 minutes to go.

Okoh had 10 points in each half and made 8 of 15 shots. Since making his season debut on Dec. 30, he is averaging 15.9 points and 5.9 rebounds in nine games and has scored at least 20 points in each of the three games during the winning streak.

"We've kept it pretty much the same on offense, but he's a scoring threat," said McLaughlin. "He's a very skilled offensive player. When you have that, the opponents need to focus on him, and now that might free up some of our other guys.

"He takes a lot of attention. I think we've got a great team top to bottom. He opens things up for us."

Since the start of the MASCAC season, BSU has been tripped up by MCLA (a four-point loss) and Worcester State (a five-point defeat). The Bears responded to those two losses in a four-day span to play their best basketball of the year.

"We've been practicing really well, "McLaughlin. "We've been focused and locked in and it's been showing and now we're starting to hit our stride. Just a credit to their focus. They're locked in. Every guy is coming in every day at practice and making sure we're at a high level of consistency when it comes to effort, energy and focus."

The Bears play their next two games on the road, traveling to Framingham State Wednesday for a 7:30 matchup, then to MCLA next Saturday afternoon.

Salem State has a non-conference game at Eastern Nazarene on Wednesday night.