Despite playing a triple overtime thriller on Monday night, the Buena Vista men's basketball team showed little signs of fatigue on Tuesday afternoon as the Beavers broke the game open in the second half and cruised to a 100-78 victory over Hartwick College to claim the title at the Albright Holiday Tournament Championship in Reading, Pa.
Junior Nick Clark, who turned in 25 points during Monday's triumph, scored the first eight points for the Beavers today, and finished with 23 in the game to claim tournament MVP honors. Sophomore Kennedy Drey had his second straight double double, turning in 15 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, while senior Cole Darrow also scored 15 points while hauling in five rebounds.
Senior Nick Wuebker just missed out on a double-double, scoring 11 points and grabbing eight boards, while fellow senior Alex Savage also missed out on his first career double-double, scoring 10 points and dishing out eight assists. Drey and Savage also represented the Beavers on the All-Tournament Team.
As a team, BVU shot a sizzling 54.3 percent for the game and held Hartwick to 40.5 percent. The Beavers also made 10-of-27 from long range (37 percent) and sank 14-of-18 attempts from the charity stripe.
Defensively, the Beavers again held a comfortable margin in the rebounding column, outrebounding the Hawks, 51-38.
Clark hit a three right out of the gate for the game's first points, as the Beavers never trailed. The lead grew to 21-12 with 14:03 left in the first half before the Hawks cut the gap to 22-19 with 11:00 to go.
It remained a three-point game at 30-27 with under nine minutes left before a bucket from Drey pushed the margin back to five to help spark a pivotal 14-2 run over the next four minutes to give BVU a 44-29 lead.
The Hawks (5-4) got as close as 11 with just over 2:00 remaining, but back-to-back three-pointers from Clark and Darrow quickly pushed the Beaver advantage up to 54-37, as BVU took a 55-38 lead into the break.
BVU did not let off the gas pedal to start the second half, maintainig the 20-point cushion for nearly all of the final 20 minutes. The margin reached 30 after a Darrow made free-throw with 6:24 remaining, and the Beavers crusied in from there.
It marks the sixth time this season that the team has reached the 90-point plateau and the second straight game with at least 100.
Buena Vista improves to 7-4 on the year and will now have a week to prepare for its Iowa Conference opener at Loras College on Wednesday, January 7 at 8:00pm.