ST. LOUIS – (RV) Missouri Baptist Men's Basketball drained 13 three-pointers – the most in a game in more than two years – and raced by Lyon College 75-54 in the first round of the AMC Postseason Tournament on Thursday night at the Petty SRC. The top-seeded Spartans now await the winner between (4) Central Baptist and (5) Williams Baptist.
The Spartans didn't give the eighth-seeded Scots much hope of pulling off an upset early on Thursday. A quick 14-4 lead five minutes in forced a full timeout by the visitors.
RJ Pair was the catalyst with four threes in the first half.
It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows in the opening period though for MBU. A gritty Lyon squad settled in, especially on the defensive end. After the fourth of Pair's three-pointers, the Spartans went into a seven-minute scoring drought.
Jadis White finally took the lid off the basket with a three but the halftime lead was just six (31-25).
Lyon cut it to two early in the second half before
RJ Pair once again took over. The graduate senior scorched the nets for threes on three out of four possessions and the lead was back up to 13 (44-31) in the blink of an eye.
The Spartans continued to light it up from 3PT as
Billy Francis Jr. came in and added three three-pointers to his total. On the night MBU converted on 13 of 23 attempts from beyond the arc.
Pair's 23 points was a team-high and just short of his career-high of 25. He was 8-13 from the field and 7-10 from 3PT.
Brendon Hardy (14) and
River Reed (13) joined Pair in double figures.
Billy Francis Jr. provided the most efficient stat line of the night with nine points in 10 minutes.
Other key contributors included
John Yaeger, whose 11 rebounds inched him closer to 700 for his career (675) and
Jadis White with eight points and seven assists.
Ryan Pollard was also a force on the glass with a season-high eight boards.
The opponent for Saturday's semifinal is still to be determined but the start time is set for 4 pm inside the Carl and Deloris Petty SRC. Central Baptist and Williams Baptist had their game pushed back to Friday at 2 pm due to weather. If the Spartans can once again hold serve, they would advance to the AMC Tournament Championship game for the first time since 2005.
