Men's Basketball sweeps Conference Weekend with Victory on Saturday
IRVING, Texas – The University of Dallas men's basketball team (8-8, 3-4 SCAC) would win its second straight Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) game, and go 3-2 on a five-game homestand. Dallas topped Schreiner University (7-11, 1-6 SCAC) by a final score of 71-55. The Crusaders jumped ahead 36-23 by halftime and would lead by as many as 17 in the early portion of the second stanza.
Schreiner held two leads in the early possessions. This began on the first basket of the game from SU's Josh Bashford. Two three-pointers by both squads would exchange leads before junior Michael Sarrat (Colleyville, Texas) sank a jumper inside the three-point arc to notch his 600th career point with 18:11 left in the first. The guard cracked 500 earlier this campaign on December 12 versus Sul Ross State University in the Maher Center.
Freshman Prince Giadolor (Rockwall, Texas) would lift the Crusaders up 6-5 by making the front end of two free throws. The Mountaineers received a 5-0 run on a jumper from Phillip Kee and trey from Andrew Logan to push the advantage to 10-6 within the first four minutes of the contest.
Dallas responded with eight unanswered points and would never trail the remainder of the game. Senior Sean Bambace (San Antonio, Texas) nailed a three-pointer to widen the gap back to two possessions after the Mountaineers cut things 14-12. Schreiner's Seth Levy drained a trey to narrow the margin four (19-15), but Bambace would find another triple to make the Navy and White extend the lead to double-digits with 10-straight points.
With 5:11 until the break, Schreiner cut things to eight (28-20), but Sarrat hit his first three of the game to swing UD back to a double figure lead, that would not dip under 10 the rest of the way. The next juncture of the contest that happened was a trey by Joseph Daupin, but Sarrat stymed a late comeback attempt on his own three-pointer and started a 7-0 run to secure the triumph.
INSIDE THE BOXSCORE
- Sarrat paced Dallas with a game-high 17 points. Also recording a double-double was classmate Tom Kaiser with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Completing a trio of double figure scorers was junior Lorenzo Gonzalez with 10.
- Gonzalez would dish eight assists for a new career-high in the past 11 days. Bambace totaled nine points off the bench. He and Sarrat each dialed three trifectas to combine for six of the team's eight made shots from downtown.
- The Crusaders shot 49.2 percent from the floor overall and 40 percent from beyond the three-point arc. UD won the battle on the boards 38-34, and handed out more assists by a 21-15 edge. Dallas scored 38 points in the paint compared to 14 by SU. Both team's turned the ball over 11 times.
- Schreiner shot 32.8 percent in the game from the field. The Mountaineers also managed eight made trifectas, but were only 24.2 percent downtown. Quentin Lenard posted a team-best 12 points. Wes Miller gave five assists.
THOUGHTS FROM COACH SAMPLES
"We had a great defensive effort tonight. I thought we did a good job of making them work and not giving them anything easy. We also battled on the glass even though we were smaller. Offensively we moved the ball and made the extra pass. Lorenzo made some great passes and the other guys finished. Bambace gave us a lift off the bench with his shooting. We need to continue to play with the effort and attitude that we played with tonight." – Head Coach Jarred Samples
UP NEXT
Dallas will begin a five-game road trip with non-conference foe Southwestern Adventist University on Monday. It will be the third contest in four days. Tip-off is at 8 p.m.