The Millikin men's basketball team scored a key road conference victory winning 69-66 at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois on January 28.  The Big Blue are now 8-11, 3-5 while the Cardinals go to 14-5, 4-4.

          Millikin had a strong start to the game and built a 37-28 advantage at halftime.

The Big Blue would push the advantage to 14 at 42-38 with 18:43 left in the game, but the Cardinals would stage a rally.  North Central would out score Millikin 36-22 over the next 13 minutes and the Cardinals tied the game at 64-64 with 5:15 left in the game.

Neither team would score again until 2:33 left in the game with Millikin's Zach Long hit on one of two free throws to give Millikin a 65-64 lead.  TJ Sims would push the Millikin lead to 67-64 with a jumper at the 1:35 mark.  North Central's Charles Rosenberg answered to make it 67-66 Big Blue with 1:07 left to play.  Sims would seal the win with a layup with 35 seconds left.

          Sims was the story for the Big Blue for the third straight game.  The freshman scored 29 points to lead the Millikin attack.  TJ Griffin had nine points and six assists.   Bryn Agnew and Nathan Biggs each had eight points and tied for the team high in rebounds with seven.

          Kevin Honn led the Cardinals with 21 points.  Rosenberg had 19 points and Jack Burchett had a double double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

          Millikin shot 47.5 percent from the field while the Cardinals hit on 44 percent.  Each team had 34 rebounds.  North Central committed 12 turnovers with Millikin committing eight.

          Millikin will be back on the road on Saturday playing at Elmhurst College at 4 p.m.