COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Trevor Osborne delivered a career-high 21 points, Andrew Vickers added 19 more and the No. 21 Whitman College men's basketball team cruised past Johnson & Wales (CO) 102-62 in the opener of the Rocky Mountain Thanksgiving Classic on Friday evening.
Osborne turned in his career performance in only 20 minutes of action and shot 50% from the floor and connected on five three pointers, one off his career high. As a team, the Blues (5-1) handled the Wildcats in nearly every major statistical category. Whitman finished with a 26-8 points off turnovers advantage and dominated inside to the tune of a plus-30 point advantage in the paint.
Andray Thomas led the Wildcats with 18 points and eight rebounds and Brandon Romero added 12 points.
The Blues came out of the gates firing on all cylinders. They scored on four of their first five possessions, including back-to-back three pointers to go up 11-5 just over two minutes into the game. The three-point barrage from Osborne continued as he connected on another two from beyond the arc to put Whitman up by 12 points still early in the first half.
The Wildcats continued to see a heavy dose Blues basketball as the lead swelled to 18 with 8:41 to play until halftime. Osborne connected again with another three pointer before baskets from Vickers and Weston Crump put Whitman up 32-14. Brandon Romero's three pointer shaved the deficit to 12 points for JWU but the Blues closed the half on a 10-2 run capped by a pair of buckets from Bryce Mulder to take a 46-26 lead into halftime.
Whitman entered halftime with complete control of the game and kept it throughout the second half. The Blues pushed the lead to 22 points early in the second half off a Robert Colton layup, then an Osborne three pointer made it a 63-39 score with 13:24 to play. Mulder later followed up his own missed shot to extend the lead to 26 points and the Blues won going away.
Whitman closes out the Classic on Saturday against host Colorado College. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. MT (6:30 p.m. PT).