High school buddies turned college foes, Yaakema Rose of UMSL and Isaiah Stafford of Southern Indiana, battle for position during Friday’s GLVC quarterfinal basketball game at First Community Arena in Edwardsville. (Photo: Nathan Assata)

Team	1	2	Total
Southern Indiana	32	36	68
UMSL	43	47	90

by Cedric Williams
Senior Editor

EDWARDSVILLE, IL — The University of Missouri-St. Louis men’s basketball team delivered perhaps its best performance of the season, Friday night in a Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament game against Southern Indiana.

UMSL led from start to finish, and shot a blistering 62 percent from the floor, in what proved to be a dominating 90-68 victory that ended USI’s season and advanced the Tritons to GLVC Tournament semifinals, which will be played Saturday night at SIU-Edwardsville’s First Community Arena.

The victory, which raised UMSL’s season record to 22-6, is also the Tritons’ eighth win in a row and their 10th in their last 11 games. But none of those wins were as sweet as the one UMSL picked up on Friday, as the Tritons came out of the locker room firing — and hitting nine of their first 11 shots — which helped them grab a quick early lead and never look back.

Southern Indiana did manage to tie the score at 19 midway through the first half. But UMSL responded to that by going on a quick 9-2 run to re-take the lead, then finished the half on an 11-2 run to lead 43-32 at halftime.

The Screamin’ Eagles had hoped to regroup in the locker room and find their own groove at the start of the second half, but it was the Tritons who kept rollin’, as they opened the second half with another 11-2 run that put UMSL ahead 54-34.

From that point on, USI never got closer than 16 points and trailed by as many as 27 points, following a three-pointer by Marquis Collins with just under nine minutes to go. At that point, the only question was would the Tritons get to 100, which seemed certain until head coach Bob Sunvold began pulling his starters with around five minutes left in the game.

UMSL senior Shane Wissink led all scorers with 28 points, including a sensational seven three-pointers on 10 attempts. Four other Triton players also reached double-figures in scoring. Yaakema Rose had 17 points, Marty Jackson had 12 points, and Collins and Steve Webb added 10 points apiece, as UMSL flat out blew the doors off Southern Indiana.

The Screamin’ Eagles, who came into the GLVC Tournament as the second-highest scoring team in the conference this season, just couldn’t match UMSL’s hot shooting. The Tritons shot 58.3 percent in the first half, then managed to do even better by shooting 67.1 percent in the second, while USI could only manage 39 percent in the first half and 41 percent in the second.

UMSL was also magnificent passing the ball, as it totaled 21 assists on its 30 made baskets. That’s 70 percent (seven out of every 10) of UMSL’s successful shots came off a direct pass from one of their teammates.

The No. 4 seed Tritons will hope to continue their hot play on Saturday, when they’ll take on No. 8 seed William Jewell in the semifinals. The Cardinals advanced to the semis by knocking off top-seeded Southwest Baptist in their quarterfinal game on Thursday.

The winner of the UMSL-William Jewell game will advance to the GLVC Championship Game, which will be played at First Community Arena on Sunday.

Southern Indiana 68

##	Player	GS	MIN	FG	3PT	FT	ORB-DRB	REB	PF	A	TO	BLK	STL	PTS
00	Jelani Simmons	*	29	8-14	5-7	2-2	0-2	2	4	0	1	0	4	23
32	Jacob Polakovich	*	23	4-5	0-0	2-6	3-3	6	0	0	5	0	1	10
03	Tyler Henry	*	25	3-7	1-3	2-2	0-1	1	0	0	2	0	1	9
13	Isaiah Stafford	*	35	3-11	1-5	0-0	2-2	4	1	1	3	0	0	7
04	Elijah Jones	*	20	0-0	0-0	1-2	2-3	5	4	1	2	2	1	1
02	Clayton Hughes		10	3-5	2-4	2-2	1-0	1	3	1	1	1	0	10
01	Isaiah Swope		31	2-12	0-4	2-2	0-1	1	1	5	4	0	2	6
33	Chance Coyle		8	0-0	0-0	2-3	0-0	0	1	0	0	0	1	2
31	Tyler Dancy		9	0-1	0-0	0-0	1-1	2	2	0	0	0	0	0
11	Jack Mielke		4	0-2	0-2	0-0	0-0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
10	Tyler Martin		3	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
24	Michael Rogers		3	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
TM	TEAM		0	0-0	0-0	0-0	4-3	7	0	0	1	0	0	0
	TOTALS	–	200	23-57	9-25	13-19	13-16	29	16	9	19	4	10	68

Missouri-St. Louis 90

##	Player	GS	MIN	FG	3PT	FT	ORB-DRB	REB	PF	A	TO	BLK	STL	PTS
02	Shane Wissink	*	37	8-11	7-10	5-5	0-3	3	3	3	2	0	0	28
04	Yaakema Rose	*	27	7-10	0-1	3-3	3-4	7	1	3	3	0	2	17
21	Marty Jackson	*	21	5-8	0-1	2-2	1-3	4	4	3	1	1	2	12
23	Steve Webb	*	29	3-5	0-0	4-4	0-3	3	2	2	6	1	4	10
35	Jose Grubbs	*	22	0-3	0-1	1-2	0-2	2	2	2	1	0	3	1
01	Marquis Collins		17	3-5	2-3	2-2	0-1	1	2	2	0	0	2	10
13	Kellen King		6	2-4	0-1	2-3	0-1	1	1	0	0	0	0	6
11	Isaiah Fuller		24	1-2	0-0	2-2	0-2	2	1	2	1	1	0	4
05	Trever Moore		13	1-4	0-2	0-0	1-2	3	0	4	0	0	1	2
15	Myles Cephas		2	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
03	Lawrence Brazil III		1	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12	Sam Richardson		1	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
TM	TEAM		0	0-0	0-0	0-0	1-1	2	0	0	1	0	0	0
	TOTALS	–	200	30-52	9-19	21-23	6-23	29	17	21	16	3	14	90