Brownwood, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor men's basketball team dominated the first half and never looked back as the Cru rolled to an 80-56 victory over Howard Payne University Thursday night in Brownwood. The UMHB men improve to 9-7 overall and 7-6 in American Southwest Conference play on the year with the victory. The loss drops the Yellow Jackets to 4-12 overall and 4-9 in the ASC on the season.
The victory is also Cru head coach Ken DeWeese's 700th win as a collegiate head coach. DeWeese won 404 games at McLennan Community College and now has 296 victories at UMHB. He needs just four more wins to become the first head coach in Cru history to win 300 games at the school.
The Cru trailed 4-1 in the early going, but Kitrick Bell's dunk gave UMHB a 5-4 lead just 2:22 into the game. That dunk would be part of a 14-0 run to put the Cru up by double figures at the 14:01 mark of the first half. UMHB continued to stretch it out from there and built a 49-22 lead at halftime. Howard Payne never got closer than 18 points the rest of the way as the Cru coasted to the victory.
Jerard Graham topped UMHB with 19 points and 11 rebounds in the win and he added three assists and three steals. Kevin Waller chipped in 14 points and nine boards, Russell Green scored 13 points off the bench and James Allen also reached double figures with 11 points to go with seven rebounds. The Cru shot 57 percent from the field in the first half and hit 44 percent for the game. UMHB also out rebounded Howard Payne 53-29 in the victory.
Brandon Gould led HPU with 23 points, but no other Yellow Jacket scored more than nine points in the game. Howard Payne shot just 31 percent from the field in the game and only hit 3-18 from three-point range in the loss.
The Cru men will close out the road trip with a 3:00 PM tip-off at Sul Ross State University in Alpine on Saturday. UMHB will then play six of its final eight regular season games at home at the Mayborn Campus Center.