SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Behind a career-high 30-point performance from Alex Battist, a 24-point effort by Jeremy Beckler, and a career-best 17 points off the bench from Matt Banovetz, the Carleton College men's basketball team wrapped up its visit to the Lone Star State with a 103-100 victory over host Trinity University.
This was the 19th time in program history that the Knights (3-1) surpassed the century mark in scoring, and this was their highest point total since tallying 105 against Crown on Dec. 5, 2016. Saturday's offensive outburst came against a Trinity (6-1) squad that was receiving votes in the latest D3hoops.com poll.
"Unbelievable game, and a great win for our team," said Carleton head coach Guy Kalland. "I don't recall many games where we've given up 100 points and still found a way to win. Trinity had a tremendous team, and it took everything we had to come out on top. I am very proud of and happy for our players and team as a whole."
With Saturday's result, Carleton is now 2-20 all time when surrendering at least 100 points in a game. The only other such victory was a 111-104 triumph at Bethel University on Feb. 12, 1996. In fact, this was only the third time in the 112-year history of Carleton men's basketball that both teams reached triple digits. Besides the Bethel game mentioned above, the other time was 32 years ago to the day, a 109-104 loss at Hawaii Loa College.
The Tigers entered the day averaging 91.5 points per game after scoring 108 points in Friday's victory over Birmingham-Southern. Carleton was averaging 79.7 points over its first three games of the season.
The Knights shot 52 percent overall on Saturday and went 13-of-28 (46 percent) from beyond the arc. Carleton was 26-of-35 (74 percent) at the free-throw line. In comparison, Trinity shot 51 percent overall, 42 percent (11-of-26) from long range, and 61 percent (17-of-28) at the charity stripe.
Luke Harris was the fourth Knight in double figures, matching his season and career high with 14 points. Alex Gibbens and Beck Page contributed nine and eight points, respectively.
The first half saw a series of runs. Carleton raced out to a 12-2 lead, only to have the Tigers respond with a 20-3 surge. Trinity later opened up its biggest lead of the day at 40-30 with six minutes still to play before intermission, but the Knights closed the half with an 18-9 run that trimmed the hosts' lead to 49-48 at the break.
Battist had 16 points over the first 20 minutes, while Banovetz accounted for 10 points in the first half on 3-for-3 shooting, including 2-of-2 from beyond the arc.
The second half saw more back-and-forth action. Trinity led by as many as nine points, but Knights kept chipping away and eventually tied the game at 87-87 when Page drained two free throws with 3:47 still on the clock. Beckler's tough layup on the next Carleton possession pushed the Knights ahead for good.
Later leading 93-91 with 1:33 remaining, Carleton made 9-of its next-10 free throws to build a 102-94 lead with 17 seconds remaining. That was enough to withstand a pair of late triples for the Tigers.
Battist finished the afternoon 11-of-20 from the field, including 4-of-5 from long range. This was his eighth career contest with at least 20 points, while Beckler notched his 10th career such game. Both players grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, while Beckler led all Knights with five assists and Battist accounted for three blocked shots.
Tanner Brown led four Trinity starters in double figures, scoring 25 points.