MT. VERNON, GA - After a hard-fought exhibition loss to the University of South Carolina Wednesday night, the CIU men's basketball team would pick up a dominant win over Brewton-Parker, 95-79. The Rams move to 2-0 on the season and pick up their first win of the year against an NAIA opponent. The win was Coach Tony Stockman's 20th regular-season victory as the coach of the Rams. 

How it Happened

1st Half: CIU 58 BPC 36 - CIU would start the game scoring 15 points before the Barons would even get on the board. Freshmen Skyler McKinney would be the catalyst to the run with solid play on both ends of the floor to start the game. McKinney would score 5 of the Rams first 17 points and record a handful of rebounds in the first 4 minutes of the first half. Sophomore Eric Graham would keep the momentum going shooting well from behind the arc, and the Rams would find themselves with a 28-14 lead at the 10:00 minute mark. The rest of the half would be all McKinney as the freshman would go into halftime with 18 points to help CIU to a 58-36 advantage.

2nd Half: CIU 95 BPC 79

Corey Benton and Jeff McIlwain helped to keep distance between the Rams and Barons throughout the 2nd half. Benton, usually deadly from behind the arc, would get deep into the Baron defense and would score inside as well as draw several shooting fouls. McIlwain would alter shots on the defensive end of the floor and score from the block on the offensive end. However, despite leading by double-digits for the majority of the game, Brewton-Parker would cut the Rams lead to just 8 with 5:44 remaining in regulation. CIU once again turned to freshmen Skyler McKinney who drilled a three-pointer to put the Rams back up by double digits. CIU would not look back and coasted to a 95-79 victory. 

Game Notes 

• Skyler McKinney scored a season-high 31 points while going 9-10 from the field. The freshmen also pulled in 9 boards. 
• Corey Benton chipped in 17 points, while Eric Graham was perfect from 3-point range going 3-3 from deep on the evening. 
• CIU scored 21 points off the Barons 20 turnovers. 
• The Rams shot a superb 57.4% from the field while going 50% from behind the arc on 13-26 shooting.

What Coach Stockman is saying 

"I am very pleased with the way our guys came out to start the game. I was worried about coming in sluggish coming off the USC game, but we were focused on both ends of the floor. We went up big early on and were able to withstand their runs later in the game." 

Up Next

CIU takes on NCAA Division 1 rival Charleston Southern University on Tuesday at 7:30 PM in North Charleston, SC.